Revelation, Intellectual Intuition and Reason in the Philosophy of Mulla Sadra: An Analysis of the al-hikmah al-'arshiyyah (Routledge Sufi Series) by Zailan Moris

Author:Zailan Moris [Moris, Zailan]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Publisher: Taylor and Francis
Published: 2013-11-05T05:00:00+00:00

From the above notation, it is clear that the source of Mulla Sadra’s view of the unity of the knower and the known is divine inspiration and not merely philosophical speculation. Although, the source of Mulla Sadra’s epistemological view of the unity of the knower and the known is divine inspiration, his exposition of the principle is philosophical. In the Asfar, Mulla Sadra argues for the unity of the knower and the known in the act of knowing by systematically refuting the various definitions of knowledge prevalent among the Islamic philosophers or hukama’ and providing a rational justification of his position.

Although Mulla Sadra’s view of the principle of the unity of the knower and the known is divinely inspired, it should be noted that Mulla Sadra is not the first to formulate or expound this principle. This principle had been expounded by the neo-Platonists and Mulla Sadra himself is aware of this fact. In the al-‘Arshiyyah for example, Mulla Sadra not only acknowledges his indebtedness to the ‘ancient philosophers’ of whom he names specifically Porphyry for expounding the principle of the unity of the knower and the known; but he also believes that his method of reasoning on this matter is in agreement with theirs.276 However, Mulla Sadra considers himself to be the first Islamic philosopher to systematically expound this principle and to provide a satisfactory philosophical justification of it.277 Mulla Sadra’s original contribution to the discussion of the principle of the unity of the knower and the known is his demonstration of it.

In Islamic Philosophy, the neo-Platonic principle of the unity of the knower and the known was rejected by Ibn Sina and many other Mashsha’i philosophers in favor of the Aristotelian view of knowledge as the abstraction of the form of the object from its material properties and the union of the abstracted form with the human intellect. Mulla Sadra is able to re-instate the neo-Platonic principle of the unity of the knower and the known and to defend it against the opposition of the Peripatetic philosophers by postulating his radical definition of knowledge as a form or mode of existence. Mulla Sadra’s definition of knowledge as a mode of existence is a logical corollary of his metaphysical view that being or existence is the sole reality.

Mulla Sadra refutes the Aristotelian definition of knowledge as the abstraction of the form of an object and its unity with the human soul by asserting that mental forms and material forms are fundamentally different and therefore, cannot become a part of each other. Mulla Sadra also rejects Ibn Sina’s view that in the act of knowing, change only occurs in the perceived object and not in the human soul. According to Mulla Sadra, in the act of knowing, change does not only occur in the known object or intelligible but also in the soul of the knower. In every act of knowing, the human soul attains a new level of being. The principle that knowledge involves the attainment of a new

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