Constructive Realism: A Reading of Islam and a Version of Religious Science

Abstract

This article wants to examine a particular case of constructive realism in relation to the Islamic cultural sphere. I am going to argue for two points in this regard. Firstly, I want to suggest that a kind of constructive realism is presupposed in Islam. This no doubt involves a new reading of Islam as there are other readings some of which might go directly against the strategy of constructive realism. The well-known fundamentalist reading of Islam implies that Islam urges us to have a rigid view and a set of fixed beliefs. I am going to challenge this reading and suggest that a kind of constrictive realism is presupposed in the main Islamic text namely Quran. That is to say, according to Quran, as far as ontology is concerned, there are realities in the world including the reality of God, on the one hand. However, epistemologically speaking, achieving these realities involves a constructive development in the human mind. Thus, while knowledge is held in this reading to be toward reality, reality is taken to be achieved through human constructs.

The second part of this article puts forward an outline of the possibility of developing a religious (human) science according to Islamic teachings. This would be a case of constructive realism. This is because a religious science qua science takes a direction toward reality and qua religious takes a religion's teaching as the standpoint for constructing hypotheses about the realities concerned. The two parts will be addressed below respectively.

Keywords: religious science, constructivism, islam, quran, epistemology

JEL Classification: Z00