Talk:Islamic psychological thought
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A fact from Islamic psychological thought appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know? column on 19 January 2008. |
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[edit] Name?
It strikes me that this might be better named as Islamic psychology - it's dealing with the parts of the field of psychology developed in the Islamic world, rather than the "psychology of Muslims" per se, and this title seems to vaguely imply the latter. Shimgray | talk | 20:40, 19 January 2008 (UTC)
[edit] OR tag
The recurring problem in this article, and the explicit reason for the OR tag, is the use of language which frames meaningful and important phenomena using terms that suggest alternate interpretations. This represents an attempt at original research because it misrepresents the contribution of "ancient Islamic mental philosophy" to contemporary Psychology, the language of which is used to describe the earlier "discoveries." Scholarly discussions of these issues, in independent peer-reviewed journals, treat them with much more nuance than is reflected here. This is not noted out of colonialist pique, but out of necessity in preserving the differences between medieval ideas and contemporary psychological research. Attempts to incorporate new influences into the disciplinary history must be made in the proper forum. (For an example of such an article, see here [1].) For more on this issue, see below. -JTBurman (talk) 23:27, 21 February 2008 (UTC)
- From the WikiProject Psychology talk page:
- Discussion about "doing history" in psychology
In response to the spate of recent edits of the history of psychology article, which incorporated anachronistic presentations of Islamic "psychology" into the general description of the discipline, Chris Green started a discussion at his blog. Having evolved over several weeks, this examines the clashing historiographic sensibilities evinced between expert and naive contributions to Wikipedia, as well as suggestions from both communities about what to do about it. Although further comments are of course welcome, the discussion itself may serve as a useful touchstone for future edits with historical implications. (In short, the argument is that historical movements should be examined in their own contexts, rather than in ours.) --JTBurman (talk) 03:22, 4 February 2008 (UTC)
- I think a distinction should be made between "psychology" as a general term, at times almost synonymous with Philosophy, under which almost anything may fall on wikipedia, and Psychology as a science and discipline that originated, we could perhaps agree, in the 1800s with experimental psychology (e.g. Pavlov) and writer/clinicians such as Freud, Kraepelin (really psychiatrists) and others continuing on to Alfred Binet, William James etc. through John Watson and its formation as a recognized profession with standards and credentials in the 1940s, in the United States at least. In short, I agree with the above statement. by JTBurman. Mattisse 14:46, 4 February 2008 (UTC)
- While I agree that the article could do with some improvement, I think the Template:Original research tag is inappropriate. Almost everything written here in this article is based on what is written in published sources or peer-reviewed journals. I've already re-worded whatever anachronisms I've noticed in the article in my recent edits, and I can assure you that, as the article currently stands, almost none of it is my own original research. The only part of the article that is unverified is a paragraph in the Islamic psychology#Mental health and mental illness section (though not written by me personally), which I've now removed from the article. Jagged 85 (talk) 09:42, 22 February 2008 (UTC)
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- The problem is holistic; it can't be addressed by tweaking things here and there. Phrases like al-‘ilaj al-nafs are presented to mean "psychotherapy," when this word means something specific in contemporary Psychology. From what I can tell checking other sources, the phrase's literal translation is closer to "The Curing/Treatment of the Ideas/Soul/Vegetative Mind." But that's not the same thing as "psychotherapy." If the current state of the article is an accurate reflection of the referenced material, and the presentist bias is not in fact a problem of the article misrepresenting the nuances of its sources, then indeed that material is to be questioned as contributions to the discipline we call "history of psychology." (Was it all published in peer-reviewed journals? Are they all by credible scholars with academic appointments? Is there activist intent or straight historical exegesis? etc.) With respect, that's not something we can decide without a larger discussion; reverting my OR tag without extended debate is irresponsible. As it stands, the current presentation represents an original contribution to knowledge: it presents the implicit argument that contemporary Psychology is ignoring its true origins, even though professional historians have disagreed -- in writing [2] -- and have suggested instead that there is a basic problem of understanding reflected in these edits. -JTBurman (talk) 10:27, 22 February 2008 (UTC)
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- Rereading my own description of the problem, and having referred to articles that are known to me to be more nuanced than what is presented here (e.g., Marmura, 2008[3]), it seems more accurate to describe this situation as a type of original research called "Synthesis of published material serving to advance a position" (WP:SYN). The tag has been updated to reflect this, with the appropriate note posted at WP:NORN. -JTBurman (talk) 10:49, 22 February 2008 (UTC)
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- Considering how almost all of the information in the article is attributed to verifiable sources, don't you think it was a bit irresponsible to add the OR tag in the first place? Nevertheless, the synthesis tag which you now replaced it with is certainly more reasonable than the OR tag (even though I still disagree with it to an extent). As for the source which I cited for al-‘ilaj al-nafs, it does in fact use the word "psychotherapy" to refer to the term (i.e. in the sense that al-nafs means self/mind/psyche and al-‘ilaj means cure/treatment/therapy). I'm not sure whether this is the exact correct meaning or how much it has in common with the modern discipline of psychotherapy, since I'm obviously not a psychologist nor am I an Arabic expert, but all I am doing is simply reporting what I read in sources which are considered reliable by Wikipedia's standards. I am quite certain that there is no original research in the article as it currently stands, nor am I attempting to synthesize the sources to make any kind of implicit argument that the modern discipline of psychology originated from the Islamic world. The purpose of the article is simply to present various psychological/psychiatric/psychotherapeutic/mental concepts developed in the medieval Islamic world. The only significant problem I see with the article is the presentist terminology used, most of which I have already removed from the article (or at least the ones which are not attributed to any reliable sources). And maybe the title could also be changed to something like "Islamic psychological thought" (or one of the Arabic terms like al-‘ilaj al-nafs, al-tibb al-ruhani or tibb al-qalb) instead? Jagged 85 (talk) 11:23, 22 February 2008 (UTC)
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- Also, if the presentist terminology is the problem with the article, then I think Template:Weasel might be more appropriate than Template:Synthesis for this article. The latter implies that the article's conclusions differ from the sources cited, which is not the case at all. Jagged 85 (talk) 14:34, 22 February 2008 (UTC)
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- Actually, I've changed it to a NPOV tag instead, since presentism (the topic of discussion) is really a bias issue. Jagged 85 (talk) 16:05, 22 February 2008 (UTC)
- The problem is that many, if not most, of the psychological/psychiatric terms used in the article did not exist before the 19th century. In fact, the term psychology is a relatively new concept as a separate discipline from medicine and philosophy. And some of the terms used, like neurosis, have already outlived their usefulness and are no longer used in the field today. Yes, there is a history of human beings dealing with issues of mental states of mind going back thousands of years, but to say that, for example, Ahmed ibn Sahl al-Balkhi ca (850-934) used these terms as they are defined today is not possible. The terms used today are diagnostic terms determined by some attempt at scientific consensus. The fact that some of these writers referenced in the article used terms that are translated into modern Western medical terminology does not mean that the writers "invented" the concepts. Perhaps the article content is actually Islamic philosophy. Regards, Mattisse 16:59, 22 February 2008 (UTC)
- Actually, I've changed it to a NPOV tag instead, since presentism (the topic of discussion) is really a bias issue. Jagged 85 (talk) 16:05, 22 February 2008 (UTC)
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- In all honesty, judging from the Wikipedia articles on psychotherapy and psychiatry, I honestly don't see how they differ too much from what physicians in the medieval Islamic world were doing. It may very well be presentist to apply those terms to medieval times, but wouldn't it also be modernist to suggest that similar concepts could not have existed before modern times? Regards, Jagged 85 (talk) 14:03, 25 February 2008 (UTC)
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- Briefly: The contemporary concept of mind is different from the medieval Islamic concept of nafs. Therefore, any treatment/curing/therapy of that entity will be bound up with different implications. As a result, they need to be treated differently. To conflate them is considered presentist by the professionals in the discipline.[4] If you wish to make the case that this is incorrect, then the appropriate venue for that argument is a peer-reviewed scholarly journal; to do otherwise, at Wikipedia, meets the criteria for "original research." -JTBurman (talk) 16:10, 25 February 2008 (UTC).
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- The study of the mind dates back to ancient Greek and Indian philosophy, and the study of the mind in the Islamic world was understood in the same pre-modern sense. Just because the same term was used does not necessarily mean it must refer to the same contemporary concept. Jagged 85 (talk) 12:13, 5 March 2008 (UTC)
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- I grant that philosophical interest in what we call the mind dates back beyond the beginning of contemporary Psychology.... But the use of presentist terms in describing those endeavours is to imply things of those earlier works that simply cannot be: they are incommensurable, in the sense that meaning is lost in translation. For this reason, terms need to be adequately defined and put in their proper context. Only then will their meaning be adequately communicated: the translation of technical terms is a problem of implication, as well as of word choice. JTBurman (talk) 19:11, 5 March 2008 (UTC)
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[edit] Where to go from here
JTBurman has asked me to chip in on this discussion. First, like Jagged 85's suggestion of retitling the page "Islamic psychological thought", which will help underscore the thrust of the article, which is to describe what Islamic scholars and physicians thought and practiced regarding the working of the mind and mental diseases.
I generally agree JTBurman and Mattisse about the danger of projecting too much of the framework of modern thinking into a decidedly different cultural context that has only limited continuity the history of (the discipline of) modern psychology. But the main point of contention here seems to be whether there is a holistic problem with the way this article is put together, beyond just terminology. I don't see that being the case. Or rather, what problems there are mostly seem to reflect the state of scholarship; at least judging by the venues of publication, the sources being used seem legit (by academic standards as well as Wikipedia's).
If how to talk about Islamic psychology/psychological thought a problem the academic community hasn't solved, then it's probably beyond the scope of Wikipedia to correct that. JTBurman suggests an alternative translation for al-‘ilaj al-nafs, and points to the meaning of nafs as a central issue. Perhaps adding a section on terminology immediately after the lead could help clarify things, and explicitly lay out usage conventions for the rest of the article, noting the caveats with respect to seemingly similar modern concepts.--ragesoss (talk) 17:11, 28 February 2008 (UTC)
- Thanks for the suggestions. I've now moved the article to Islamic psychological thought and added an Islamic psychological thought#Terminology section, though it might need to be expanded. Regards, Jagged 85 (talk) 12:13, 5 March 2008 (UTC)
- I've ironed out a lot of the presentist terminology (except for the ones explicitly stated in the sources) and have expanded the "Terminology" section slightly more. I think the article as it currently stands is a lot less presentist than before, so I think I'll go ahead and remove the NPOV tag for now. Regards, Jagged 85 (talk) 20:41, 7 March 2008 (UTC)
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- Here's a quote, from one of your own sources, that may help make my point:
- It is also important here to make a distinction between Muslim and Islamic philosophy as the two are not necessarily the same. The term Muslim philosophy generally refers to the works of those Muslim thinkers who were highly influenced by Greek thought whether or not they liked it. It includes metaphysics and other philosophical concepts not only of the early scholars but of different schools of thought that emerged within Islam over the years. The unique characteristic of Muslim philosophy is that it blended foreign philosophies with Islamic thought resulting in a change in the Hellenistic philosophy itself.... The term Islamic philosophy is narrower in approach and draws ideas mainly from Qur’an and Hadith. It is related to the external (Shariya) aspects of the Qur’an as well as the hidden meaning (Haqiqah) of its verses. Islamic philosophy is actually an endeavor to get to this Haqiqah, which is the sole reality and the only truth as well as the ultimate goal of Islamic philosophy. It is well known that almost all early Muslim scholars including Ibn Sina and Ibn Rushd against whom charges of atheism were made (because of their Aristotelian conception of the world being co-eternal) found inspiration primarily from the Islamic sources.[1]
- To conflate "Muslim philosophy" with "Islamic philosophy" is therefore to misrepresent the implications of the arguments cited (where MP is more Hellenistic and IP is more explicitly religious). This is the same problem as equating al-‘ilaj al-nafs with "psychotherapy." They are not the same. -JTBurman (talk) 07:14, 17 March 2008 (UTC)
- Here's a quote, from one of your own sources, that may help make my point:
