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[Lyn Farel]

Huh ? Ok, we may not have the same definition in mind then, but I see where you are coming from. I simply understood it as killing someone calmly, without being under the guise of emotion, reasons or not to do it.

However you are only reacting like Miz and saying outright that it is wrong because it is. It doesn't make any sense and explains nothing and certainly not why it is.

[Vizage]

I'm only not explaining why randomly murdering people without cause is bad because I'm giving  even here the benefit of the doubt that they understand this as a self-evident truth and not something that requires me to explain in length.

I can however explain it if you need me to. But I'd rather not have too cause ::lazy::

[Mizhara]

I'm bouncing out of this thread now.

There are free seats in the observation lounge. I made the same decision somewhere around the fourth time this thread went bizarre beyond belief.

[Kala]

You clearly don't understand what cold blooded murder is.


To murder in cold blood is to murder without reason. Without motive or cause.  To simply murder.  I. E.  Walk up to a stranger and execute them on the very spot for absolutely zero reason.  A senseless/thoughtless act in the very literal sense of the word.

Huh.  I thought to murder in cold blood meant to do so calculatedly - hence the cold.  Intentionally and without emotion.

As opposed to manslaughter or crimes of passion where you strike out due to rage or hate.

[Vizage]

Murder in the second degree is actually the "crime of passion" murder. Manslaughter is reserved for acts of accidental killing. Criminal negligence leading to death.

Murder one, aka murder in the first degree is murder with planning and intent. Planning being the critical component to a murder one charge.

Cold blooded murder on the other is a commonly misused term that isn't in fact used in at least Western legal justice systems  (no one is charged with 'Cold blooded murder'. ) But it's original meaning is to murder without cause or motive.

[Nicoletta Mithra]

You clearly don't understand what cold blooded murder is.


To murder in cold blood is to murder without reason. Without motive or cause.  To simply murder.  I. E.  Walk up to a stranger and execute them on the very spot for absolutely zero reason.  A senseless/thoughtless act in the very literal sense of the word.

Huh.  I thought to murder in cold blood meant to do so calculatedly - hence the cold.  Intentionally and without emotion.

As opposed to manslaughter or crimes of passion where you strike out due to rage or hate.

Second-degree murder is ordinarily defined as: an unlawful, intentional killing that is not premeditated or planned, nor committed in a reasonable "heat of passion".

First-degree murder is usually defined as an unlawful killing that is both willful and premeditated, meaning that it was committed after planning or "lying in wait" for the victim.

That said, definitions of murder vary, especially in the technical context of law. Merriam-Webster says in regard to cold-blodded:

cold–blood·ed
adjective \ˈkōl(d)-ˈblə-dəd\

: showing no sympathy or mercy : done in a planned way without emotion

: based on facts : not affected by emotions

biology : having cold blood : having a body temperature that is similar to the temperature of the environment
Full Definition of COLD-BLOODED
1
a :  done or acting without consideration, compunction, or clemency <cold–blooded murder>
(...)

'Consideration' here seems to mean 'a desire to avoid doing something that will make another person sad, upset, angry, etc.' in that context.

Murder seems to presuppose some minmal intent by definition and thus it is far from a totally random killing. Cold-blooded murder could be random in the sense that you had the intention to kill someone, while not intending to kill someone in specific, letting e.g. a diceroll decide who you kill. It is not the kind of killing where someone walks up to someone else and devoid of all reason kills that other person.

That it is unlawful killing is what distinguishes it from death sentence, which is lawful killing of a human. This is also why murder is by definition wrong - in the sense of 'wrong' as 'unlawful'. Of course one can't argue about that. What one can argue about is, though, if unlawful killing can be morally/ethically justifiable, though. There are a lot of arguments that say that e.g. tyrannicide can be considered justified morally and ethically, even though it is unlawful (most Tyrants outlaw the act of killing themselves).

[Jace]

This is partly due to the regions relative isolation to Western philosophy. Turkey being the only nation in the region to really interact and trade with Western discourses, and this is of course after the fall of the Ottoman Empire.

I just have to pipe in at this. The notion that the Islamic world was somehow backwards because it didn't have access to Western philosophy is way off base. Much of ancient philosophy was kept alive purely because of the Muslim world - and thinkers like Al-Farabi were developing similar foundations as the Western philosophers at the time. Those foundations did not disappear, but instead were continued and developed in a similar fashion to the West's - we just don't 'remember' them in the West because we are strictly taught our own tradition that developed out of Aquinas.

[Vizage]

This is partly due to the regions relative isolation to Western philosophy. Turkey being the only nation in the region to really interact and trade with Western discourses, and this is of course after the fall of the Ottoman Empire.

I just have to pipe in at this. The notion that the Islamic world was somehow backwards because it didn't have access to Western philosophy is way off base. Much of ancient philosophy was kept alive purely because of the Muslim world - and thinkers like Al-Farabi were developing similar foundations as the Western philosophers at the time. Those foundations did not disappear, but instead were continued and developed in a similar fashion to the West's - we just don't 'remember' them in the West because we are strictly taught our own tradition that developed out of Aquinas.

Al-Farabi

Al-Farabi is a philospher of the Islamic Golden Age.

  Al-Farabi argued that the ideal state was the city-state of Medina when it was governed by the prophet Muhammad as its head of state, as he was in direct communion with Allah whose law was revealed to him.

Sorry but Al-Farabi may have been renowned during his time. That time being the same time as Aristotle and Plato. But Western philosophy wasn't even a notion until the Renaissance period. Aquina's (who was born nearly 300 years after the death of Al-Farabi) wasn't even a part of the Renaissance period (14th Century, which is a whole century after Aquinas' death.)

So if you want to call Al-Farabi and Aquina's influential  sure.

But Al-Farabi was not "Developing" similar foundations as Western Philosophers (Plato,and Aristotle both being Ancient Philosophers), and even if he did that work was immediately mired in an Islamic dark age that its still struggling to get out of.

[Elmund Egivand]

I wonder why hasn't anyone invited lawyers, sociologists and theologists into the thread. That would settle everything nicely.

[Jace]

But Al-Farabi was not "Developing" similar foundations as Western Philosophers (Plato,and Aristotle both being Ancient Philosophers), and even if he did that work was immediately mired in an Islamic dark age that its still struggling to get out of.

Congratulations, you caught me misspeaking when the end of my paragraph clearly communicated what I meant - namely that Al-Farabi and others laid the foundation for a vibrant tradition of philosophy that easily rivals the West for much of history. We in the West ignore that tradition partly because it is not what informed our development.

You can dismiss Al-Farabi for being Muslim if you want, but you damn well dismiss the deified Greeks for considering women subhuman (literally) and defending slavery (when it was clear from their writings they were aware of the abolitionist movements of the time - yes, they have been around that long).

The Islamic world still contributes to an endless amount of disciplines to this day - including ethics, aesthetics, political theory, and countless others. We simply ignore them in the West because we like to say that a small minority of extremists are representative of the Islamic world. Sorry, ISIS is not Islam. It is unbelievably ignorant to claim that the Muslim world (as if that is somehow a homogenous thing that can be characterized as a whole) is still in some sort of dark ages or to claim that they have contributed virtually nothing to entire fields such as ethics.

Edit: Took out a phrase that was typed in very poor judgment.

[Nicoletta Mithra]

Al-Farabi

Al-Farabi is a philospher of the Islamic Golden Age.

Sorry but Al-Farabi may have been renowned during his time. That time being the same time as Aristotle and Plato. But Western philosophy wasn't even a notion until the Renaissance period. Aquina's (who was born nearly 300 years after the death of Al-Farabi) wasn't even a part of the Renaissance period (14th Century, which is a whole century after Aquinas' death.)

So if you want to call Al-Farabi and Aquina's influential  sure.

But Al-Farabi was not "Developing" similar foundations as Western Philosophers (Plato,and Aristotle both being Ancient Philosophers), and even if he did that work was immediately mired in an Islamic dark age that its still struggling to get out of.

That is so blatantly false.

Western philosophy has a gapless history from its pre-Socratic beginning up to the present. Ancient philosophy is 'western' philosophy. And it most certainly didn't start with the Renaissance, that is simply being ignorant not only of the philosophers of classical and late antiquity, but also of the middle ages.

From Augustine, Boethius, Johannes Scotus Eriugena, Remigius of Auxerre, Anselm of Canterbury, Adelard of Bath, Bonaventure, Duns Scotus, Peter Auriol, the oft-quoted William of Ockham,  Albert the Great, up to Thomas Aquinas all were decidedly western philosophers that are still read to day - some more some less - and only scratch on the surface of the many people that were bearing the torch of philosophy through the so-called 'dark times'.

What did start with the Renaissance period was early modern philosophy. To claim that only modern philosophy and as it's first instanciation the humanistic philosophy of the Renaissance was 'western philosophy' is amounting to falsification of history and can't be seen as anything but a misuse of terms, especially as there isn't even a radical break between early modern philosophy and the western philosophy of earlier times. To the contrary, renaissance philosophy explicity drew on earlier philosophy, especially Platonism, but also on the aristotelian tradition which had come to dominate in scholastic philosophy in the high middle ages. Beyond that the humanism of the Renaissance would not be thinkable without it drawing on the earlier humanism as developed by Islamic philosophers.

Al-Farabi's time (*872, †950) certainly wasn't the time of Plato ( 428/427, †348/347 BCE) and Aristotle (*384, †322 BCE). He living, thus, more than a millenium after the two great ancient greek philosophers and in relation to them he indeed was a contemporary of Aquinas.

Al-Farabi himself was educated in classical greek philosophy. We know that he studied the texts of the ancient greeks, especially Aristotle, who has long been of great influence in islamic philosophy, through the Baghdad school at which Al-Farabi learned and teached. He was a systematic rethinker of Hellenic philosophy.

That is to say that he was not developing similar foundations as the ancient greeks, but he was firmly standing on them as his foundation. Al'Farabi's thought by the way didn't get "immediately mired in an Islamic dark age", but rather continued to flourish on through the works of great philosophers as Avicenna, Al-Ghazali, Averroes, Ibn Gabirol, Maimonides and other and was carried on into the late centuries of the 2nd Millenium by numerous scholars in Safavid Persia as well as Ottoman Turkey and is a still living tradition, just as much as philosophy is in Europe and overseas in so called 'western' countries.

All those forming - together with other philosophers - a current in western philosophy that started even earlier, arguably with Al-Kindi - so called islamic philosophy or 'falsafa' (an arabization of greek 'philosophia') - which wasn't only practiced by muslims, by the way, but also Jews and Chirstians living within the cultural sphere of Islam.

Though there was a certain decline of philosophy after the 'Islamic Golden Age', especially in the more western parts of the islamic cultural sphere, in the eastern parts of it, especially Persia and India islamic philosophy didn't loose its dynamic and continued to flourish. Later on in the late 19th and early 20th century interest in the specifically islamic tradition of philosophy resurged with the Nahda movement and this interest continues to the present day.

As for islamic philosophy not contributing to ethical questions in the last 4 centuries:

As for sexism, the common law long denied married women any property rights or indeed legal personality apart from their husbands. When the British applied their law to Muslims in place of Shariah, as they did in some colonies, the result was to strip married women of the property that Islamic law had always granted them — hardly progress toward equality of the sexes. ("Why Shariah?")

Evidently it was not through islamic thinking having nothing to contribute, but rather due to the ignorance of Westerners, that it did contribute little.

[Nicoletta Mithra]

Luckily, I don't see any reason that people, in the entirety, get so stuck on a position that they entirely close down to reasonable debate and rational discourse and arguments.

You are an optimist one aren't you ?

Not really:
But if you have a million people you always have a few dozen that question the status quo because they think it is cool to do so. And a handful of people questioning with intellectual honesty, because they want to find out if society is right.
Amongst the mass of human 'sheep' there are always some that are 'as wise as serpents' and amongst those some that are also 'as immaculate as doves'. Though, on the other end, there is a lot of 'cattle', in my opinion, for sure.

I wouldn't exactly call that optimism.

[Arista Shahni]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cZlNNSjsELs

[Vizage]

*snip*

Alrighty, by the time I was this last night it was way to late to me to get thought to page and didn't want to reply in such a state. Now that I've got a good night sleep I think I can begin to at least tether something coherent together. First and foremost.

Western philosophy has a gapless history from its pre-Socratic beginning up to the present. Ancient philosophy is 'western' philosophy. And it most certainly didn't start with the Renaissance, that is simply being ignorant not only of the philosophers of classical and late antiquity, but also of the middle ages.

You are absolutely right. Forgive my narrowness is definition. An apology to -Guy who keeps changing his name- as well. I was thinking it terms of contemporary and modern Western Philosophic eras. (Pre-Socratic - Ancient - Medieval - Renaissance - Modern - Contemporary) Only because I thought we were arguing about Islamic Contributions POST Golden age.

Secondly;

Al-Farabi's time (*872, †950) certainly wasn't the time of Plato ( 428/427, †348/347 BCE) and Aristotle (*384, †322 BCE). He living, thus, more than a millenium after the two great ancient greek philosophers and in relation to them he indeed was a contemporary of Aquinas.

Absolutely right again. No excuses here except I think I was on the train home from work and completely forgot about the BCE time period. Seriously though. I went so red when I realized with I did here.

Okay now onto the actual points of contention here. Namely your "name dropping." Quite honestly some of the names you've used here as examples of philosophers where influenced are people who one could more easily be argued to be influenced by Plato, Aristotle, or Socrates.

By that I mean the influence is at a very foundational level. In the same way that a lot of Philosophers right upto to  contemporary philosophy are still influenced these men. (To provide an example: The Wright brothers have and still to this day influence the field of aviation, in that they discovered the fundamentals of flying. Comparing the plane they used to fly over Kittyhawk and a modern day fighter however is a very different story.)

So let just go over these "names" you've used to highlighted. Actually before I do that I would also be prudent to point out that all of the philosophers you claim were influenced and carried the torch forward after Al-Farabi, lived and died all within the period of the Islamic Golden age, none making it to the end.

Avicenna
- Avicenna lived alongside Al-Farabi, and were actually considered opponenets of one another during their time
- That does not mean Avicenna wasn't deeply influenced by Al-Farabi however, especially in metaphysics.

Al-Ghazali
-A deeply influential man in the work of Islam
- Also a man whos works ran completely contrary to Al-Farabi's. His first work The incoherence of Philosphers is a direct attack on Ancient Greek philosophy, Al-Farabi, and Avicenna.
- Indeed Al-Ghazali's rebuttal of Greek Philosophy was so strong he cemented his style and train of thought into the Islamic psyche for years to come.

Averroes
- An Aristotelian Philosopher, that while deeply respected in the Muslim world was considered deeply controversial for his challenges again Al-Ghazali.
- A founder of Scholasticism he also rejected Al-Farabi's, and Avicenna's take on Greek philosophy as a whole, primarily by attempting to distinguish Aristotelian from Platonism. 

Solomon Ibn Gabirol
- A Jewish Neoplatonic Philosopher who actually attempted bring Western philosophy back into the Orient.

Maimonides
- Now this guy is most definitely heavily influenced by both Aristotle and Al-Farabi
- No real arguements here.

Basically my point is. These men are contemporaries who died at the closest one hundred years before the end of the Islamic Golden age. A point at which you openly admit the entire process ground to a halt.

Now lets think about the end of the Golden Age for a minute. Ending in the eleventh century, the twelfth century Renaissance (The one with Aquinas's in it) hasn't even begun yet. 
We then have:
The Renaissance Era Philosophy Which includes:  Bartolomé de las Casas, Desiderius Erasmus, Niccolò Machiavelli, Martin Luther, John Calvin, Nicolaus Copernicus, Michel de Montaigne, and Francis Bacon.
The 17th Century (Aka The Age of Reason) which includes: Francisco Suárez (1548–1617) Mir Damad (d. 1631) Galileo Galilei (1564–1642) Mulla Sadra (1571–1640) Hugo Grotius (1583 -1645) Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679) Pierre Gassendi (1592–1655) René Descartes (1596–1650) Thomas Browne (1605–82) John Milton (1608–1674) Blaise Pascal (1623–1662) John Locke (1632–1704) Baruch Spinoza (1632–1677) Nicolas Malebranche (1638–1715) Isaac Newton (1642–1727) Gottfried Leibniz (1646–1716) Pierre Bayle (1647–1706) Damaris Cudworth Masham (1659–1708) Mary Astell (1666–1731)

And I haven't even got to Kant yet.

The point is, all these names have to be put into perspective. Simply listing them off is deeply dishonest and doesn't paint a full picture.

Think about how deeply influential the men above have been on the philosophic world, and then look towards the Middle East during this time period. This is of course during the rule of the Ottoman empire, and the fall of Islam from its once prominent position on the globe.

......which wasn't only practiced by muslims, by the way, but also Jews and Chirstians living within the cultural sphere of Islam.

While we're on the Ottoman empire, lets talk about the position of Jews and Christians living among Muslims. Specifically the fact that they were considered second class citizen in entire legal sphere. The women often forcibly converted to Islam to be married off at a young age, and the men being given the scrap pickings of land title. During the formation of Turkey as a state they used to tax Christians and Jews, along with Armenians (We all know what happened to them...) and other Non-Muslims heavily, in an attempt to balance the wage differences and bring money back into the hands of Muslim's.

Shariah law was not an option in the Ottoman empire it co-existed with a secular legal system. The problem being anytime a Muslim was involved, Shariah took precedent.

Which brings me this:

As for islamic philosophy not contributing to ethical questions in the last 4 centuries:

As for sexism, the common law long denied married women any property rights or indeed legal personality apart from their husbands. When the British applied their law to Muslims in place of Shariah, as they did in some colonies, the result was to strip married women of the property that Islamic law had always granted them — hardly progress toward equality of the sexes. ("Why Shariah?")

Evidently it was not through islamic thinking having nothing to contribute, but rather due to the ignorance of Westerners, that it did contribute little.

This has to be some of the most dubious cherry-picking I have seen to date when talking about Shariah law. Not only do you insult the Suffragettes and all contemporary modern female critics who fought long and hard for female recognition and equal rights in the eyes of the law, but you also mask Shariah a moderately contemporary justice system.

Shall I highlight the sections of Sharia where a women is obliged to marry her rapist.  How about Honour Killings? Or how about what happens if you criticize Mohammad? Or how about Apostasy?

Don't be ridiculous.

[Arista Shahni]

Haven't we established that body mutilation and all those other things in the EVE universe is less evil than slavery... ?

.. ok, I'm trolling.

/puts herself in the corner for a time out.