RECONSIDERING ECONOMICS THROUGH CONCEPTIONS OF LANGUAGE IN CLASSICAL ECONOMIC AND ISLAMIC TRADITIONS �

WASEEM NASER�

THE 15TH INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON ISLAMIC ECONOMICS & FINANCE

SASANA KIJANG, KUALA LUMPUR

20-22 FEBRUARY 2024

Summary

Language Socio-Economic Order

Part I: Analyse role of Language in formation of modern Economics

Part II: Foundational Possibilities from within an Islamic paradigm

Relation

LANGUAGE AND THE RISE OF MODERN ECONOMICS IN SMITH

• Smith’s “An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations” (1776)

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• Propensity in us to exchange could be “the necessary consequence of the faculties of reason and speech”
• In The Theory of Moral Sentiments (1758), he states that the faculty of speech is very much founded by our instinctive desire of persuading or being believed- “Sympathy”.
• The phenomenon of exchange thus within the process of sympathy - strategy to persuade others to exchange

LANGUAGE WITHIN THE ENLIGHTENMENT PROJECT

• The Dominant Aristotelian/Scholastic conceptions of Reality:
• “Equivocation” as a theological framework – figurative/metaphorical dimension of words
• Language as inherently ambiguous and Nature as mysterious
• Enlightenment as a dissenting Project following the Copernican revolution
• Physical world in perpetual motion following Mathematical “Natural” laws – Galileo’s “New Science”
• Mathematics most efficient/unambiguous “Scientific” Language for describing Nature
• Descartes –”Mind” or cogitation a completely different domain of Reality- Problem of mind-body duality

THE ‘EMPIRICAL’ IMPULSE OF BRITISH ENLIGHTENMENT

• Hobbes - First systematic attempt to express human behaviour in mathematical/ mechanistic terms
• No fundamental difference between the motions of physical reality and the workings of the mind
• Scientific exploits do not ‘discover’ mathematical Reality, but rather ‘construct’ mathematical Reality
• Newton –Science as simplification of phenomenon through observation and experiments
• Mathematics not only embedded in nature but is also verifiable within it
• Justifications for Mechanical analogies in explaining social behaviour- metaphors of clock/wheel/watch
• Two broad views on Scientific Language
• ‘Derivative’- Mere tool that conveys contents of mind - Mathematics as reflection of Reality
• ‘Constitutive’- Language as mental constructions - Mathematics as most efficient construct

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SITUATING SMITH’S ECONOMIC PROJECT

• The Humanistic Ambivalence of David Hume and Adam Smith- Newtonian Optics over Mechanics
• Newtonian appeal of analogies from the physical world to the human/social world
• Historical turn - Offering Economic accounts as causal explanations to historical phenomena
• Underlying idea of “Natural” progression in otherwise “Human” history
• The ‘mechanisms’ of the “Impartial Spectator” in his Ethics and the “Division of Labor” in Economics a means of tracing ‘Natural Laws’ of society empirically in history

Smith’s Stadial Theory of History

Simple Possession

Animal

Land

Contracts

“Mechanism” of Division of Labor allows society to progress through Historical stages

Autonomous Economic Domain

• Certain Magnitudes have their own ‘motion’ or dynamics
• “Natural” rates of price, wage, profit and interest
• Mathematical Laws empirically discerned and historically verified
• Newtonian – Isolate basic Principles to explain motion or movement

Property Relations

WHITHER ISLAMIC ECONOMICS?

• Islamic Economic thought engage heavily in foundational critique of mainstream Economics
• Language appears prominently in the semantics of apparently Economic terms in Quran/Sunnah
• Discerning Economic aspects in the writings of classical Islamic scholars - often in Legal texts
• Such ideas dictated by Linguistic/grammatical possibilities in Scriptural interpretation
• Risk of reading apparently modern ideas into their thinking -Ibn Taymiyyah illustrative case

COMPARING TRADITIONS THROUGH CONCEPTIONS OF LANGUAGE

• Funkenstein (1986) – Enlightenment marked a clear trend with regard to scientific discourse
• Efficiency of Language (Mathematization)
• Homogeneity of Nature (Uniformity of matter in universe)
• Classical Islamic scholars operated on dual conception of Reality-
• Lafz (Word/Language)
• Ma’ana (Meaning/Idea)

THE CONTEXT OF ARABIC LANGUAGE

• Preservation of Arabic as Quranic Language in the context of:
• The various qira’at and codification of the written Quran
• The expansion of Islam during the Caliphate
• Systematization of Arabic grammar by Sibawayh and rise of Basran and Kufan schools
• Speculative questions on Language discussed in theological circles
• Origin of Language, Nature of the Quran and Status of Divine attributes
• “Tawqif al-Lugha” against “Istilah”
• Ambiguity not to be overcome, but rather taken as feature of Language

SITUATING IBN TAYMIYYAH’S IDEAS

• Mu’tazili notion of Quran as ‘Khalq’ and prominence of human reason for deducing Ma’ani as Divine Intentions
• Ragib al-Isfahani’s - Language as series of relations made between mental ideas (Ma’ani) and expressions (Alfaz)
• Ideas also constitute “objective” Language as long as its structures and principles are followed
• Similar to Hobbes - thinking influenced by structural patterns of language. But no Hobbesian demand for an efficient language like mathematics
• Theories of Language among Falasifa – Farabi, Ibn Sina
• Shifted discourse to a dichotomy between Lafz and “Ma’qulat” (intelligibles)
• Certain intelligibles have an independent existence/quiddity

THE TAYMIYYAN INTERVENTION

• Critique of Majaz being juxtaposed to Haqiqa - not espoused by any of the pious predecessors (Salaf)
• Such conceptions rooted in Mu’tazili notion of ‘Istilah’
• Later Ash’aris developed Majaz along the framework of Falasifa
• Ibn Taymiyyah argues that words do not have “universal” or “primary” meanings independent of contexts
• Expressions (Alfaz) can still refer to multiple ideas (Ma’ani), but the intended meanings can only be arrived at through recourse to the context of the speaker and the intended audience
• Transmission (khabar) becomes the most reliable – hence justification for a particular hermeneutic

IBN TAYMIYYAH’S EPISTEMOLOGY

• Primordial Human nature (fitra) conceived through
• Classical Hanbali-Ash’ari conception of reason as an “instinct” (ghariza)
• A significantly social notion of Ilham as a Divine endowment for grasping language
• Entities can exist only in the perceivable (Mahsus) or mental (Ma’qul) realm – against Falasifa
• Language can only be comprehended contextually or historically- Sense perception and transmission (khabar)
• Linguistic structures significantly effect thinking in this conception
• Dedicated nominalism having parallels with Enlightenment – therefore his modern appeal

CONCLUSION: THE WAY FORWARD

• Indicate possibilities of reconsidering Economics at the foundational level through Language
• More research required on comparing these two intellectual traditions and two thinkers:
• Smith’s conception of Human Nature with Ibn Taymiyyah’s notion of ‘fitra’
• Social contract and labor theory of value with that of ‘Tawqif al-Lugha’
• Smith’s psychological reconstruction of human reason with that of it as “instinct” (ghariza)
• Language as a means of reflecting on the ambiguity of Economics as a Science – Does it attempt to predict the future or prescribe it?