In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

19 Mullå Ṣadrå on Perception Muslim philosophers speak of perception—using the Arabic word idråk—in an exceedingly broad sense. For them, perception denotes apprehension and obtaining knowledge by any agent, from animals to God, and on any level, from physical sensation to intellectual vision. In the philosophy of Mullå Ṣadrå, the concept of perception plays a crucial role both in the explanation of the nature of existence and in the analysis of the goal of human life. This follows naturally from the fact that his philosophy is oriented toward “psychology” in the premodern sense of the term. In other words, he attempts to provide an overview of the human self in all its ramifications and to map out the way for the self to achieve the highest of its own possibilities, possibilities that are rooted in its ability to perceive. Perception At the end of the first book of his monumental al-Ḥikma al-mutaʿåliya f¥-l-asfår al-ʿaqliyya al-arbaʿa (“The Transcendent Philosophy: On the Four Intellective Journeys ”), Ṣadrå provides definitions for some thirty words that are employed in discussing the modalities of knowledge. He lists “perception” as the first of these words. In defining it, he begins with its literal sense. As any Arabic dictionary will tell us, it has a variety of meanings, such as attaining, reaching, arriving, catching, grasping, comprehending, and discerning. Ṣadrå writes: Idråk is encounter [liqåʾ] and arrival [wuṣ¶l]. When the intellective potency arrives at the quiddity of the intelligible and attains it, this is its perception in this respect. In philosophy, the meaning intended by the word coincides with the literal meaning. Or rather, true perception and encounter is only this encounter, that is, perception by knowledge. As for bodily encounter, it is not really an encounter.1 221 222 / In Search of the Lost Heart Before going any further, we need to allude to some of the issues raised by this definition. Like all Muslim philosophers, Ṣadrå analyzes the human self in terms of faculties. However, the Arabic word for “faculty” is quwwa, which is also the word for “potentiality” as contrasted with “actuality.” Given that every faculty is at the same time a potentiality, quwwa can better be translated as “potency.” Its dual meaning is especially important in Ṣadrå’s writings, because his analysis of the human soul depends precisely on seeing it as a grand potentiality that encompasses every other potentiality designated by the names of the faculties. In this definition of perception, Ṣadrå means by the “intellective potency” the power and potential of the self to know something. When this power reaches an object, it moves from potentiality to actuality. The degree of actuality that it achieves is one of the most basic issues that needs to be addressed. In the definition, Ṣadrå says that through perception the intellective potency arrives at the “quiddity” (or “whatness”) of a thing. In other words, when perception takes place, we come to know “what” the object of perception is. The fact that perception entails knowing a thing’s quiddity is emphasized in the second word that Ṣadrå defines in his list of technical terms—shuʿ¶r or “awareness .” Awareness, he says, is to perceive something without “achieving fixity” (istithbåt), that is, without ascertaining the thing’s whatness. He adds, “Awareness is the first level of the arrival of knowledge at the intellective potency. It is, as it were, a shaky perception. That is why it is not said about God that He is ‘aware’ of a thing,”2 although it is said about Him that He “perceives” things. The thing that is perceived is an “intelligible,” that is, an object known to intelligence. The intelligible is called the “form” (ṣ¶ra) of the thing, in the Aristotelian sense of the word form. Hence, it is contrasted with the thing’s “matter” (mådda), which is unintelligible in itself. The only things we can truly perceive and know are forms, not matter. Finally, in this definition Ṣadrå insists that true idråk—that is true attainment , reaching, arrival, and encounter—pertains to knowledge and not to the body. This reminds us that real perception of things can only take place if an intelligent agent encounters an intelligible object. Every bodily attainment is fleeting and evanescent. So also, any modality of perception that is sullied in any fashion by the body’s materiality will be deficient in certain basic ways, because the form will be obscured...

Share