Sohravardi and the Question of Knowledge

Rational Perception

The fifth step in Sohravardi’s theory of knowledge is the recognition of rational perception (idrak al-‘aqli ). Sensory and imaginary perceptions are particular perceptions and belong to senses and memory, but rational perception is the function of reason/intellect and is abstract and universal. Sohravardi believed in Plato’s Ideal World, but his interpretation of universals is Aristotelian (2/15, 160). Sohravardi argues that universals cannot exist in reality, for anything that truly exists must be particular and distinguished from other things (2/17). Universality attributed to ideas or arbab al-anwa’ is not conceptual and logical universality (2/160); rather this universality is existential and inclusive.

Sohravardi distinguishes two types of universal concepts: general concepts of quiddities (al-mahiyyat), such as concepts like “human being” and “horse,” and abstract concepts, such as concepts like “existence” and “contingency.” The former have individual instances in reality, but the latter are only in mind; they are second intentions (2/64-73). Therefore, the concept of existence is a mental concept with no reality in the external world. If we suppose that the concept of existence has reality outside the mind, then we must say that existence has existence; the same is true with regards to the existence of existence. Hence, if we suppose that existence exists, it leads to an infinite regress. Therefore, existence is only i’tibari, a mental construct (1/348). On the bases of this argument Sohravardi holds the priority of quiddity/essence over existence (asalat al-mahiyyah ).

Sohravardi gives two criteria for distinguishing mentally constructed concepts from that which is real. His first criterion is that “anything whose existence in the external world necessitates the repetition of its species, i.e., leads to infinite regress, must exist only in the mind and not in the external world.” His second criterion is that “every attribute which is impossible to separate it from its subject is constructed by mind” (1/22, 24 and 2/69). We must distinguish between real attributes and mental attributes of things; whiteness and blackness are real, but attributes like contingency and substantiality are only in the mind.

Four centuries later another Iranian philosopher, Sadr al-Din Shirazi, criticized this argument and established the theory of the priority of existence (asalat al-wujud ) over essence. In his analysis, Shirazi makes a distinction between the concept and the reality of existence. He holds that it is essential for existence to be real and that the reality of existence is an external reality by itself not through another existence. Here we must distinguish between logical concepts which are only in minds and philosophical concepts which describe external reality (see Secondary Intelligible, chapter 2).