mostafa momeni; MOHAMAD JAVAD AKHGARI; yaser Salari
Abstract
Introduction: Knowledge by presence (al-ʿilm al-ḥuḍūrī) is a problem explicitly discussed by Suhrawardī (Shaykh al-Ishrāq). This issue has since become a significant topic in Islamic epistemology. More recently, Allameh Tabatabai has examined this problem and drawn noteworthy conclusions. According ...
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Introduction: Knowledge by presence (al-ʿilm al-ḥuḍūrī) is a problem explicitly discussed by Suhrawardī (Shaykh al-Ishrāq). This issue has since become a significant topic in Islamic epistemology. More recently, Allameh Tabatabai has examined this problem and drawn noteworthy conclusions. According to him, knowledge by presence is an existential concept, and is detached from matter. He establishes the existence of such knowledge by appealing to human self-consciousness, which manifests the presence of the existence of our own selves to us. In his view, the criterion for knowledge by presence consists in the real presence of something (the known) to another thing (the knower). Accordingly, he broadens the instances of knowledge by presence to encompass self-knowledge, a cause’s knowledge of its own effects, the effect’s knowledge of its cause, an effect’s knowledge of other effects of its cause, and human knowledge of his own sensory impressions. As for the reduction of knowledge by acquisition (al-ʿilm al-ḥuṣūlī) to knowledge by presence, Allameh Tabatabai believes that each instance of the former is indeed an instance of the latter. In fact, knowledge by acquisition always involves knowledge by presence. It follows that all human knowledge is by presence through and through. This is because it is always an instance of knowledge by presence that turns into an instance of knowledge by acquisition. This transformation is done through the imaginative faculty, which he dubs the faculty of transforming knowledge by presence to knowledge by acquisition. According to Allameh Tabatabai’s view of knowledge by presence and its transformation into knowledge by acquisition, the soul has an effective agential role with respect to epistemic forms or images, obtaining both universal and particular epistemic forms via “unification.” This implies that the process of perception consists in the “strengthening of the detached (immaterial) existence of the world” and its unification with the intellectual level of existence. Another corollary of his view is that, since knowledge is in fact something existential that cannot be subsumed under any of the quiddity-based categories, it cannot be characterized as corresponding or failing to correspond to the reality, whereas knowledge by acquisition can be thus characterized. Furthermore, his view of knowledge by presence implies that knowledge by acquisition is restricted to the material world, since material entities can neither know, nor be known. Of course, material entities involve immaterial dimensions such as change and ignorance in virtue of which knowledge applies to them.
Method: This research was carried out with the library-analytical method.
Discussion and results: The main conclusion to be drawn from Allameh Tabatabai’s discussion of the nature of knowledge by presence and its corollaries is that it can be used to determine the ground of distinction between real (ḥaqīqī) and constructed (iʿtibārī) perceptions and how they relate to knowledge by presence. Since an instance of knowledge by presence is involved in any instance of knowledge by acquisition, it follows that when knowledge is divided, what is actually divided is knowledge by presence. That is, there are two types of knowledge by presence: pure knowledge by presence and knowledge presence that can be transformed into knowledge by acquisition. Moreover, given the account of the process through which the former is transformed into the latter and how constructed perceptions emerge from real perceptions with the aid of the estimative (wahmiyya) faculty, it can be concluded that the criterion for the division of perceptions into real and constructed, on Allameh Tabatabai’s account, is the same criterion depicted in the distinction between knowledge by presence and knowledge by acquisition. In other words, just as the mind draws on the activities of the estimative faculty to transform knowledge by presence into knowledge by acquisition for purposes of convenience in ordinary life, it utilizes the same activities to derive constructed perceptions from real perceptions.
Conclusion: According to Allameh Tabatabai, it is knowledge by presence that is transformed into knowledge by acquisition through the activities of the imaginative faculty. The activities of the estimative faculty concerning real entities result in the formation of constructed perceptions. The criterion proposed by him for the division of perceptions into constructed and real is the one depicted in the distinction between knowledge by acquisition and knowledge by presence.
This clarifies the ground of the distinction between real and constructed perceptions, as well as its relationship with knowledge by presence. The ground of real perceptions is pure knowledge by presence, while the ground of constructed perceptions is the type of knowledge by presence that can be transformed into knowledge by acquisition. The distinction between these two kinds of perceptions lies in the difference of the knowledge by presence involved in them.
Mostafa Momeni
Abstract
Afḍal al-Dīn Muḥammad in Nāmāvar Khūnajī (d. 1248/646 AH) was a 13th-century logician who wrote eminent logical works such as Kashf al-Asrār ‘an Ghawāmiḍ al-Afkār [Uncovering the Secrets from Abstruse Thoughts], al-Mūjaz fi-l-Manṭiq [The Succinct in Logic], and al-Jumal fi-l-Manṭiq ...
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Afḍal al-Dīn Muḥammad in Nāmāvar Khūnajī (d. 1248/646 AH) was a 13th-century logician who wrote eminent logical works such as Kashf al-Asrār ‘an Ghawāmiḍ al-Afkār [Uncovering the Secrets from Abstruse Thoughts], al-Mūjaz fi-l-Manṭiq [The Succinct in Logic], and al-Jumal fi-l-Manṭiq [The Outlines in Logic]. This paper is concerned with textual criticism and verification of the latter essay. Although Kashf al-Asrār is Khūnajī’s most important work, it does not obviate our need to other works by him. It is, therefore, necessary to provide a refined text of these works, including his al-Jumal. This succinct essay counts as an abstract of Kashf al-Asrār, and was taught as a textbook for a long time. As evidence for the significance of the essay, it should suffice that several commentaries and expositions were written for it. The essay involves Khūnajī’s own views in Kashf al-Asrār as well. In my textual criticism of the work, I have relied on four manuscripts and one printed edition deploying the intermediary method (between copy-text editing and eclecticism) in order to provide scholars of logic with a refined text of the work. The significance of al-Jumal is attested by the fact that it was taught as part of the curriculum in northwestern Africa, and many expositions were written for it in this region. Although Khūnajī’s innovative ideas appears in his elaborate book, Kashf al-Asrār, a comparison between the two works reveals that the former is indeed an extended abstract of the latter. In fact, al-Jumal contains everything that appears in Kashf al-Asrār except for certain elaborations and objections raised by Khūnajī to others. Al-Jumal involves Khūnajī’s own views as well. Therefore, al-Jumal is a very succinct essay on important logical issues, serving as an introduction to logic and the rules of accurate thinking. It only includes the issues of definition and syllogism as part of arguments. In this essay, the author embarks on the core logical rules without going into preliminaries and without engaging in controversial problems. The method of textual criticism and an introduction of the manuscripts and copies: in the textual criticism of this book, I have deployed the “intermediary” method, relying on the following manuscripts: Two original manuscripts of al-Jumal both of which are close to the author’s time, and two other manuscripts of expositions of al-Jumal. “M”: the manuscript in Malek National Library, associated with Astan Quds Razavi, in microfilm no. 640, written between 1258 (657 AH) and 1268 (667 AH), and as it seems, it was proof-read by Khwāja Naṣīr al-Dīn al-Ṭūsī. “Q”: a manuscript of Jumal al-Qawā‘id [Outlines of the Rules] in Central Library of Astan Quds Razavi, no. 981. It was written in 1341 (742 AH) in Mecca. The manuscript is stamped as “precious.” “Sh”: a manuscript of Sharḥ al-Jumal [Exposition of the Outlines]. This manuscript also belongs to Malek National Library and was written in 1320 (720 AH). “A”: This is a very elaborate exposition of al-Jumal by Sayyid Sharīf Tilimsānī under Sharḥ Jumal al-Khūnajī fi-l-Manṭiq [Exposition of Khūnajī’s Outlines in Logic]. This manuscript belongs to Fazili Library in Khansar, available in Markaz Ihya’ al-Turath al-Islami (Center for the Revival of Islamic Heritage) in Qom. I did not regard this as an important alternative copy.
