Reference

Philosophy

The conceptual vocabulary behind Tadreej's annotated editions and essays.

This section is Tadreej's reference layer — a set of individual, linkable pages that give readers the conceptual vocabulary they need to engage with the annotated editions, essays, and Circle discussions. It is not a philosophy textbook. It is the intellectual infrastructure beneath everything else on the site.

Every page answers one implicit question: what do I need to understand about this topic to read the Reconstruction — and to think clearly about the questions Tadreej is asking?

Tier 1

Branches of philosophy

Metaphysics

What is the fundamental nature of reality?

Epistemology

How do we know what we know — and how do we know when we're wrong?

Ethics (moral philosophy)

What ought we to do, and why?

Logic

What makes reasoning valid?

Political philosophy

What justifies political authority and how should societies be organised?

Philosophy of religion

Can religious claims be rationally examined — and what happens when they are?

Philosophy of science

What is science, and what can it tell us?

Aesthetics

What is beauty, and what is art for?

Philosophy of mind

What is consciousness, and how does mind relate to body?

Tier 2

Islamic philosophical traditions

Kalam (Islamic theology)

How did Muslim thinkers reason about God, creation, and human agency?

Falsafa (Islamic peripatetic philosophy)

What happened when Greek philosophy met Islamic civilisation?

Tasawwuf (Sufi philosophical traditions)

What do the mystics know that the theologians and philosophers don't?

Usul al-Fiqh (principles of Islamic jurisprudence)

How did Muslim jurists build a science of reasoning from sources?

Ijtihad and Taqlid

When should a civilisation think for itself, and when should it follow?

Tier 3

Key concepts and positions

Empiricism and rationalism

Where does knowledge begin — in the senses or in the mind?

Idealism and realism

Is reality mind-dependent or mind-independent?

Kant's critical philosophy

What can reason know about reality — and where must it stop?

Bergson and the philosophy of duration

Is lived time different from clock time?

Hegel's dialectic

Does history move through contradiction toward resolution?

Pragmatism (James, Dewey)

Is truth what works?

Phenomenology

What can we learn from the structure of experience itself?

Existentialism

Does existence precede essence?

Positivism and logical positivism

Is only the verifiable meaningful?

Nietzsche and the will to power

What drives human striving — and what happens when it is denied?

Occasionalism (Ash'arite atomism)

Does fire burn cotton — or does God create the burning?

The Mu'tazilah and rational theology

Can reason alone reach moral truth?

Wahdat al-Wujud (unity of being)

Is all existence one?

Khudi (the self in Iqbal's philosophy)

What does it mean to become a self — and what happens to a people who stop trying?

The ontological, cosmological, and teleological arguments

Can God's existence be proved?

Al-Ghazali's critique of the philosophers

Where does philosophy overreach — and what remains when it does?

Ibn Arabi's metaphysics

What is the relationship between God and the world in mystical experience?

Mulla Sadra and transcendent theosophy

Can being itself change and intensify?

Pantheism, panentheism, and theism

Where is God in relation to the world?

Free will and determinism

Are human beings free — and what hangs on the answer?

The problem of evil

If God is good and powerful, why does suffering exist?

Faith and reason

Must belief and rationality compete — or can they cooperate?

Mystical experience and its philosophical status

Is the mystic's knowledge real — and how would we know?

Teleology (purpose in nature)

Is the universe going somewhere — and does it matter?

Time: objective, subjective, and serial

Is time real — and whose time are we talking about?

No claim in science, theology, law, or history can be stronger than the method by which it was arrived at.

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