Sohravardi and the Question of Knowledge

Sense Perception

The forth step in Sohravardi’s epistemology is that sensory perception is one of the sources of knowledge. Our senses are our means to knowing the physical world. Sohravardi maintains that sensory perception is innate knowledge (fitri) and the foundation of our knowledge of the external world (2/104). We know physical objects only by our senses. There are five external senses (the senses of touch, hearing, sight, taste, and smell) and five internal senses (sensus communis “al-hiss al-mushtarak ”, fantasy “khiyal ”, apprehension, which is the sense that feels particular inner meanings “wahm ”, imagination “mutakhayyilah ”, and memory “hafizah ”). However, he holds that there is no reason that the number of senses should be limited to ten (3/27-31 and 2/203, 208).

One of the sensory perceptions is visual perception (ibsar/ru’yah ). Here Sohravardi departs from the peripatetic tradition and says that seeing is a kind of knowledge by presence. When seeing, the soul connects itself to the object seen and finds it in its presence. He rejects the theory of intiba’ and the theory of khuruj al-shu’a’. According to the theory of intiba’, when one sees, a ray of light radiates from the physical object to the pupil of the eyes in which the form of the object will be imprinted. The form is then reflected in the sensus communis, before being seen by the soul. According to the theory of khuruj al-shu’a’ , one sees an object when a ray of light from the eyes radiates on the external object in a conic way. However, Sohravardi says that seeing occurs in neither of these two ways - that nothing goes out from the eyes and nothing comes into the eyes. In his view, vision takes place through the illumination of the eyes on the physical object when it is in front of the eyes. When the luminous object is in front of the eye and there is no barrier between them, the soul will embrace it and see it by illumination (2/99, 34 and 1/486).