What is philosophy? Or is all of life but a metaphor?

Western philosophy has for too long been caught up in circular arguments of what can or cannot be expressed.

Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889-1951), considered by many to have been the 20th century's greatest philosopher, ends his Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus with the following words: "Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent."

Ray Monk, Wittgenstein scholar and biographer, notes the similarity between this final proposition of the Tractatus - the only book to be published in Wittgenstein's lifetime, and which, somewhat ambitiously, was intended to settle the problems of philosophy once and for all - and the first line of the Tao Te Ching: "The Tao that can be expressed is not the eternal Tao."

In other words, language is incapable of expressing the highest truths. In order to do that, according to Wittgenstein, one must initially climb up the ladder of thought and language - as provided by his Tractatus - and ultimately throw it away.

This mystical turn by his dream student caused the great British logician and philosopher Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) considerable consternation. (To give you a sense of just how highly Russell regarded Wittgenstein, Russell at one point considered giving up philosophy, thinking he had nothing more to contribute, following a particularly damning critique by Wittgenstein of one of his manuscripts.) Nevertheless, Russell did write an introduction to the Tractatus, one which Wittgenstein took issue with, suggesting that it was riddled with "superficiality" and "misunderstanding".

Downplaying mysticism

According to Paul Engelmann, a close friend of Wittgenstein's, Russell's introduction had played a major role in downplaying the mysticism of the work. After Wittgenstein's death Engelmann published his correspondence with Wittgenstein, together with a memoir, in order to encourage a wider reading of the Tractatus. On Russell's introduction Engelmann wrote: "[It] may be considered one of the main reasons why the book, though considered to this day as an event of decisive importance in the field of logic, has failed to make itself understood as a philosophical work in the wider sense."

So what then is philosophy? This, to my mind, is the central question that emerges from my earlier piece. And if it strikes the reader as odd that I am even posing such a question, then it is all the more relevant. How so? The question "why are there no Muslim philosophers?" assumes that there is a consensus as to what is meant when we speak of "philosophy", when in fact no such consensus exists.

And if this assertion strikes us as stranger still, then it is because of the single "face" of philosophy that is projected outwards (as with science and other branches of modern thought), in spite of the massive internal contradictions and points of disagreement within philosophy as a discipline of the modern academy.

At the same time, there are certain styles of thought that are simply inadmissible. Mystical thought is one of them. It is my contention, however, that "the mystical", or an understanding of life and the world that goes beyond simple surface interpretations, is intrinsic to human experience - in spite of what a scientistic worldview will have us believe.

Our everyday interactions are fundamentally mystical, in that they point to a higher meaning of life. This is manifestly true in our experience of love. But more on love shortly.

By way of comparison, as well as by way of attempting to open a conversation about why there are no Muslim philosophers, I would like to point to the central importance of mysticism in Islamic philosophy. According to a well-known Islamic saying "The metaphor is the bridge to the reality". In other words, all of life is a metaphor, a symbol, a reflection of God, who is the only real reality.

"Wheresoever ye turn, there is the Face of God" (2:115), in the words of the Quran - and this becomes a central motif in Islamic thought, especially amongst the Sufis, which include figures such as Ghazali (1058-1111), Ibn Arabi (1165-1240), and Rumi (1207-1273).

William C. Chittick has recently brought to light the central importance of love in Islamic life and thought, where love is the highest metaphor pointing to a reality beyond ourselves. At the same time, when it comes to describing love, Rumi - perhaps the greatest mystical poet of all time - writes how his pen breaks. However, he still continues to write ecstatically about the very topic of love. It is significant that the greatest philosophers in Islamic history - whether Ghazali, Ibn Arabi, or Ibn Sina (980-1037) - wrote some of the finest love poetry ever known. There is a very real sense that poetry is capable of illuminating - by "showing", instead of "stating" or "arguing" - the highest experiences of philosophers and ordinary folk alike.

In a comparable vein, it was one of Wittgenstein's main concerns to be able to "show" the inexpressible, which by definition cannot be "said", writing towards the end of the Tractatus: "There is indeed the inexpressible. It shows itself; it is the mystical."

Showing the inexpressible

Commenting on a poem by Uhland called "Count Eberhard’s Hawthorn" (that without any embellishment, drawing of morals or even comment, tells the story of a soldier who cuts a spray from a hawthorn bush while on crusade, which he brings back home with him and plants in his garden, and beneath which he sits as an old man, when it is a fully grown tree, to remember his past) Wittgenstein wrote that it was "really magnificent… And this is how it is: if only you do not try to utter what is unutterable then nothing gets lost. But the unutterable will be - unutterably - contained in what has been uttered!"

So what does this all amount to? That philosophy is to be really found in poetry, and what we have come to consider as philosophy - as it is taught in departments of philosophy - is no more than language-games, to misquote Wittgenstein? (I am referring to one of the major concerns of analytic philosophy: the nature of language and whether anything of meaning can actually be said.)

Yes and no. Western philosophy has for too long been caught up in circular arguments of what can or cannot be expressed, rather than passing over in silence to attain to higher levels of knowing and, ultimately, being (which appears to be Wittgenstein's final concern). If philosophy has anything to do with understanding how to live a better, more fulfilled life - as the ancients believed it did, and which had been understood as being the case during the vast majority of human history, and has only in recent times, in particular in the West, been separated from concerns with living "the examined life" - then the answer to the question "what is philosophy?" must once again include multiple dimensions of human expression and experience.

And if that were to happen, questions such as why there are no Muslim philosophers would begin to fall by the wayside, because the problems of power/knowledge - whereby knowledge is produced according to vested power-interests - would be turned inside out, becoming instead a question of knowledge making us utterly disempowered before the ineffable substance of life (whether we refer to that substance as God, the Tao or the unutterable), which can only be shown, perhaps, by way of a metaphor of the heart.

But I have already said too much. It would have behooved me, really, to have passed over in silence.

http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2014/06/what-philosophy-all-life-but-meta-2014629697928406.html

On This Turkish Trail, Kindness Is The Compass

When I arrived in Hersek, a Turkish village located 160km south ofIstanbul across the Sea of Marmara, Refik Ertürk was standing in the doorway of his kahve (teahouse). Men sat at card tables outside, filling the dusk air with the clicking of backgammon tiles and the clinking of spoons against their tulip-shaped tea glasses. Next door, pomegranate and fig trees grew along the stone walls of a blue-domed mosque; in the distance, I could just make out the bleating of sheep and the melodic din of their bells – sounds that would soon become familiar in this bucolic corner of northwest Anatolia.

• Related article: Echoes of an ancient land along Turkey's Abraham Path

I was at the starting point of a walking and riding route known as theEvliya Çelebi Way, which runs from Hersek south to the city of Simav. The route is 330km (some 22 days) on foot, and extends to 650km (about 25 days) on horseback, as the riding route includes the Yenişehir Plain, the 130km between Kütahya and Uşak and the Gediz Plain. Founded in 2011 by a team of historians and long-distance trekking guides, the history of the path actually extends back much further. 

Common sights, and sounds, along the Evliya Çelebi Way. (Candace Rardon)

Evliya Çelebi was a 17th-century Ottoman traveller and writer who journeyed extensively through the empire for more than 40 years, documenting his travels in his 10-volume Seyahatname (Book of Travels). As Ertürk’s teenaged daughter Tuğçe told me after her father invited me to stay in their home that evening, “he was acting like Christopher Columbus”. In 1671, Çelebi left Istanbul for the final time to make hajj, or pilgrimage to Mecca. The route named in his honour follows the first three weeks of his journey.

When Çelebi set out for Mecca, he did so with three companions, eight servants and 15 purebred Arabian horses. When I set out, I was alone. I had an 80-litre backpack full of camping gear, a 15-lira compass from a shop in Istanbul, no knowledge of Turkish except for the glossary in my guidebook and only my own two feet to convey me – plus a litany of concerns from Ertürk, his wife and Tuğçe. Where would I sleep? Who would guide me? I tried to downplay my lack of a map or GPS, but truthfully I shared in their doubts.

The man who inspired the trail, shown here in Kütahya. (Candace Rardon)

Setting out the next morning, I surprised myself by making slow but steady progress toward Simav. The route comprised asphalt road, old paved roads known as kaldırum, narrow goat paths and well-worn tractor tracks hewn from the earth over centuries of use. I often shared the road with flocks of sheep or goats, their whistling, wizened shepherds never far behind, and with farmers who waved as they ferried neatly-stacked crates of grapes, tomatoes, green apples and pumpkins.

The morning of my fourth day led me through endless groves of olive trees on the way to the town of İznik, about 35 kilometres into my walk. It was the end of October; my journey coincided with the harvest. Whole families were out working, their car doors left open to let pop songs resonate from the speakers. Women in headscarves and floral şalvartrousers balanced on ladders, stripping each branch of its olives using short, handheld rakes. Husbands and children busied themselves below on the patchwork of plastic tarps, filling brightly coloured crates and buckets. A family beckoned and taught me how to use the rake myself. After, they sent me on my way with bunches of grapes clipped straight from a nearby vine. 

Harvesting the olive groves. (Candace Rardon)

I finished eating the gift just as I arrived in the village of Orhaniye a couple of kilometres later. Seated in the shade of a kahve, I ordered atost sandwich (Turkish-style grilled cheese, often prepared with sausage) and ayran (Turkish buttermilk), and began chatting with 22-year-old Recep Toktaş, who had recently spent six months studying in Valencia,Spain. He was the first person to ask why I was on the trail. I explained that I felt that the best way to experience a new culture is to walk through it. Despite the blisters and the burden of a backpack, it is an extraordinary sensation to feel a place’s history unfolding beneath your feet – century by century, step by step. 

Step by step through northwest Anatolia. (Candace Rardon)

That afternoon, in the middle of an olive orchard, I looked up to see an obelisk dating to the 1st Century. The Dikilitaş – also known as Beştaş, meaning “five stones” in Turkish – stands 1,212m high. The obelisk marked the spot of a way-station for the Ottoman army; even Suleiman the Magnificent, the empire’s longest-reigning ruler, camped there in 1534 en route to Baghdad. After all, it was not only Çelebi’s footsteps I was following. Two millennia of soldiers and shepherds and sultans had travelled on this path, and my journey passed by reminders of that history – sacred tombs, mosques, hammams, bridges, ruins and caravansary, all of whose stones held as many stories as they did dust.

The Sungurpaşa Köyü mosque in Sungurpaşa. (Candace Rardon)

As the days passed, the route grew more mountainous. So did the likelihood of my losing the trail, since the signposting was scarcer and the forest paths proved confusing. Hardly a day went by where I didn’t get lost in the woods at least once. But what kept me walking were the people I met when, unsure of my way, I had to ask for directions – my burgeoning knowledge of Turkish assisted by mimed gestures and hand-drawn maps. Their kindness became my compass. 

On the 12th day, I knocked on the door of a farmhouse near the village of Seydikuzu after several hours of walking, lost, in a cold rain. A couple pulled me inside, spread my jacket out to dry across a sack of pinecones by the fire and told me about their children over rounds of tea and potatoburek, a baked, flaky pastry invented during the Ottoman Empire. When it was time to leave, the husband donned my 25kg backpack, leaving me – horrified and humbled – to follow him through a field to the right road. Another evening, a kilometre outside the village of Bağbaşı, I stumbled across a farmer with a herd of cows. When I asked where I might pitch my tent, he invited me to stay with him and his elderly mother. They lived above their stable; the squawking of hens and the lowing of cattle was the soundtrack as I slept. 

A traditional Turkish breakfast prepared for the author on her first morning on the trail. (Candace Rardon)

By the end of my 22-day journey, I had used my tent only four times: apart from a few hotels in larger towns such as İznik, İnegöl and Kütahya, the rest of my nights were spent in spontaneous homestays. The families never seemed to mind making space for another around their circular silver dining trays. And they never ceased to shake their heads that I was a woman walking through their country alone.  

Happening upon a wedding celebration in Isaören. (Candace Rardon)

I later received an email from the founders of the Evliya Çelebi Way. They had read about my journey on my blog and told me that I was the first person they knew to have walked the route from end to end. I felt thrilled with the accomplishment. But what gave me an even greater thrill was thinking back to all those I had met on the way – the olive gatherers and tomato farmers, the shepherds and students, the ghosts of soldiers and sultans past – and knowing I was only one more traveller who had trodden this ancient way.

http://www.bbc.com/travel/feature/20140605-on-this-turkish-trail-kindness-is-the-compass/1

12 amazing WW1 facts that you probably don't know

The secret tunnelers of WW1

World War One often conjures up images of a horrific bloodbath fought in the trenches of the Western Front. While this certainly captures some of the reality, did you know that the war spread as far as China? Or that it was fought by servicemen from Asia, North America, the Caribbean, Australasia and Africa?

Here are 12 surprising facts about World War One that you probably didn't know.

1. An explosion on the battlefield in France was heard in London

While the war raged on in the mud and trenches, a very different war was taking place beneath the soldiers' feet. A group of miners, operating in total secrecy, dug tunnels up to 100ft underground, to plant and detonate mines beneath the enemy's trenches. Their biggest success was at Messines Ridge in Belgium where over 900,000lbs of explosives were simultaneously detonated in 19 underground tunnels. Much of the German front line was destroyed, and the explosions were heard 140 miles away by the British prime minister in Downing St.

 

2. Journalists faced execution

A handful of journalists risked their lives to report on the realities of war. As the Government sought to control the flow of information from the frontline at the start of the war, journalists were banned. Reporting on the conflict was, in the opinion of the War Office, helping the enemy. If caught, they faced the death penalty.

3. 12 million letters were delivered to the front every week

Astonishingly, it only took two days for a letter from Britain to reach the front in France. The journey began at a purpose-built sorting depot in Regent's Park before being shipped to the trenches. By the end of the war, two billion letters and 114 million parcels had had been delivered.

 

4. War work turned some women's skin yellow

When a generation of men went to fight the war, more than a million women took their place in the workforce. They worked long hours, often in poor conditions and with dangerous chemicals. The so-called 'canaries' were women who worked with TNT, which gave them toxic jaundice and turned their skin yellow.

5. WW1 sparked the invention of plastic surgery

Shrapnel was the cause of many facial injuries in WW1 and unlike the straight-line wounds inflicted by bullets, the twisted metal shards produced from a shrapnel blast could easily rip a face off. Horrified by the injuries he saw, surgeon Harold Gillies, took on the task of helping victims and pioneered early techniques of facial reconstruction in the process.

 

6. Wilfred Owen was unknown at the end of the war

Wilfred Owen is one of the best know poets of the WW1, but when he died on the frontline, just a week before the end of the war, he was relatively unknown. At the time, his view of the war as one of pity and horror was in the minority. It wasn't until the 1960s that a literary elite decided this was the most authentic view of the conflict because it chimed with their own anti-war feelings. This resulted in the publication of two key war poetry anthologies which heavily featured Owen.

 

7. The youngest British soldier was 12 years old

Sidney Lewis was just 12 years old when he lied about his age and joined the army during World War One. He was one of thousands of eager underage boys who enlisted and ended up fighting alongside their adult counterparts on the front. Some were motivated by patriotism, but for others it was an escape from their dreary lives.

 

8. WW1 nearly caused a financial meltdown in Britain

At the turn of the 20th century, Britain was an economic superpower, but the world's first global war would cost more than any that had gone before. For example, the cost of bullets fired in one 24 hour period in September 1918 was nearly four million pounds.

 

9. Blood banks were developed during WW1

The British Army began the routine use of blood transfusion in treating wounded soldiers. Blood was transferred directly from one person to another. A US Army doctor, Captain Oswald Robertson, established the first blood bank on the Western Front in 1917, using sodium citrate to prevent the blood from coagulating and becoming unusable. Blood was kept on ice for up to 28 days and then transported to casualty clearing stations for use in life-saving surgery where it was needed most.

 

10. Colourful makeovers meant WW1 ships hid in plain sight

It was crucial to protect the merchant ships carrying the food and military supplies to the front from enemy torpedoes. Norman Wilkinson, an artist and Royal Navy volunteer came up with the idea of covering ships in bold shapes and violent contrasts of colour. The complete opposite of normal camouflage, dazzle camouflage was supposed to confuse the enemy rather than conceal the ships.

WW1 ship painted in dazzle camouflage

 

11. 9 out of 10 soldiers survived the trenches

Being in the firing line was rare for a British soldier. They constantly moved around the trench system - meaning more often than not they were kept from the dangers of enemy fire. The more typical experience for the British Tommy would have been a life of boredom and regular routine.

 

12. Generals were banned from going over the top

The stereotype is that the ordinary soldiers of WW1 were lions led by donkeys - the donkeys being incompetent generals who sat out the war in comfort while thousands died unnecessary deaths. In fact, so many of the generals wanted to be closer to the fighting they had to be banned from going over the top because they kept getting killed. The experience required to be a general was too significant to löse.

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/0/26936615