Sohravardi and the Question of Knowledge

Logic

Since Illuminationist Philosophy accepts rational thinking, it gives importance to logic and considers it the method employed in rational thinking. Therefore, in his major works Sohravardi deals with logic. In his view, all our knowledge is not self-evident. We are unaware of many things that it is possible to know, and we learn some things which were previously unknown to us. Nor, however, is all our knowledge acquired. In order to acquire knowledge we need some basic self-evident knowledge. Therefore, some of our knowledge is self-evident and some of it is acquired. Logic is a discipline that shows how to increase our knowledge through deducing what is unknown from what is known. Furthermore, it teaches us how to avoid fallacies. In discussing different aspects of logic Sohravardi criticized peripatetic philosophers and put forth some novel ideas.

According to peripatetic epistemology, definition is the only way of knowing general non-self-evident concepts. Through self-evident concepts we define unknown concepts. The best definition in this view is what is called a complete definition (al-hadd al-tamm ) and is comprised of both genera and differentia. The genus is the general essential property and the differentia is the specific essential property of an essence. Sohravardi criticizes the Aristotelian theory of definition (2/18-21), asking how someone can find the differentia of a thing if he/she does not know its reality. Furthermore, he asks, how can we make sure that we have isolated all essentials of a given thing? Thus, many definitions that philosophers have offered are inadequate. For example, they define substance only negatively. Simple realities such as the soul and immaterial objects do not have known differentia. Definition by necessary properties (lawazim ) is difficult as well. How can we know these properties? Defining them through other necessary properties leads to infinite regress.

In order to construct a useful definition of a thing, maintains Sohravardi, one must list the qualities (sifat ) that together define the subject. An example of this would be defining a bat with the phrase “the bird that gives birth.” We know these qualities by sense and intuition. Thus, not only essential concepts but also qualities or attributes are also useful in defining something. Not everything is composed of genera and differentia - accidents are one such example. For example, color is a non - composite accident (‘arad al-basit ) which cannot be defined by genera and differentia. The Aristotelian theory of definition is not applicable in cases such as this (2/73). But according to Sohravardi, these non-composed realities are known immediately by the senses, and composed objects are known by knowing their parts. Some realities are known only by intuition or illumination.