*In Islamic philosophy, knowledge is divided into ‘conception’ (taṣawwur) and ‘belief’ (taṣdīq). While there is no objection to dividing knowledge in this way, problems arose when belief was described as being ‘composed’ of conceptions. An early objection to belief’s dependence upon conceptions was based on a self-referential reading of the principle that ‘the unknown cannot be a subject of predication,’ which was another way of saying that ‘what is not conceived, cannot be believed.’ This objection was answered in various ways. While Naṣīr al-Dīn Ṭūsī (d. 672/1274) may have been the first to know how to solve paradoxes of self-reference, it was Sirāj al-Dīn Urmawī (d. 682/1283) who dominated most of the later discussions.
Purchase
Buy instant access (PDF download and unlimited online access):
Institutional Login
Log in with Open Athens, Shibboleth, or your institutional credentials
Personal login
Log in with your brill.com account
Ibid., 37.
Ibid., 34, last paragraph.
Cf. e.g. Thomas Bolander, “Self-Reference,” in The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2013 Edition), ed. E.N. Zalta, accessed October 20, 2013, http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2013/entries/self-reference/.
See for instance H. Eichner, “Dissolving the Unity of Metaphysics: from Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī to Mullā Ṣadrā al-Shīrāzī,” Medioevo 32 (2007): 139–197.
Ibid., 4.18: fa-kadhaba.
Ibid., 5.2: fa-namnaʿ.
Ibid., 4.16–5.3 = Quṭb al-Dīn Rāzī, Lawāmiʿ al-asrār, 18, margin.
Ibid., 30.13–18 = Quṭb al-Dīn Rāzī, Lawāmiʿ al-asrār 89, margin.
Urmawī, Maṭāliʿ al-anwār, 30.7–9 = Quṭb al-Dīn Rāzī, Lawāmiʿ al-asrār, 87, margin, lines 15 to 22.
Urmawī, Maṭāliʿ al-anwār, 114.9–13. Because the philosophical part of the Maṭāliʿ has to the best of my knowledge never been published before (covering pages 113–368 of Akkanat’s edition) it may be helpful to quote the passage in question, which was taken from the section on ‘existence’ (wujūd) as a separate subject among the ‘General Principles of Philosophy’ (umūr ʿāmma) (I am not sure if the Arabic is entirely grammatical. I would prefer to read huwa al-khalāʾ instead of wa-huwa al-khalāʾ as in the edition quoted here): … ووصف المعدوم بالمعدوم جائز کما تقول الخلاء ممتنع وقد يوجب عنه بأنّ الموصوف بأنّه ممتنع في الخارج وهو الخلاء الموجود في الذهن المحکوم عليه بأنّه ممتنع في الخارج فإنّه لا خلاء في الخارج فکيف يوصف بأنّه ممتنع فيه وهو مبني علی الموجود الذهني … “… It is permissible to predicate the nonexistent of the nonexistent, as when you say ‘The void is impossible,’ of which it might be said that what is qualified as impossible—externally—is the void existent in the mind, which is said to be impossible externally. But there is no void in the outside world. So how can one qualify it as being impossible in it? This, now, is something in which recourse is had to mental existence.” At the end of the quotation, the Arabic has al-mawjūd al-dhihnī, i.e. ‘the mental(ly) existent,’ which I thought was better to translate as ‘mental existence.’
Al-Ḥillī, al-Asrār al-khafiyya, 14.2–4. Please note the use of two synonyms for grammatical ‘subject’: maḥkūm ʿalayhi and mawḍūʿ.
Ibid., 12.18–14.10.
Samarqandī, Qisṭās, 12.2–3. Similarly in his Sharḥ al-Qisṭās, MS Berlin, Ahlwardt 5166, folio 9b, lines 29–31.
Samarqandī, Qisṭās, 12.7–8. See also his Sharḥ al-Qisṭās, MS Berlin Ahlwardt 5166, folio 10a, lines 7–13.
Samarqandī, Qisṭās, 12.10–12. For a similar reading, see also his Sharḥ al-Qisṭās, MS Berlin Ahlwardt 5166, folio 10a, lines 28–34. A waṣfiyya reading of the problematic proposition is also found in Kātibī’s Munaṣṣaṣ, but not under that or any other specific name and also without the helpful explanation that we find in Samarqandī. It is however certainly possible that Samarqandī was inspired by the Munaṣṣaṣ at this point. Cf. Kātibī, al-Munaṣṣaṣ, MS Leiden Or. 36, folio 2a, lines 29–30: کلّ ما لو وُجد وکان مجهولًا مطلقًا فهو بحيث لو وُجد يمتنع الحکم عليه ما دام مجهولًا مطلقًا
Samarqandī, Qisṭās, 85.1–2, where this proposition is given the more common name of qaḍiyya mashrūṭa ʿāmma or ‘general, conditioned’ proposition. For a detailed exposition of the mashrūṭa ʿāmma proposition in which the example of the writer is also given, cf. Quṭb al-Dīn Rāzī, Taḥrīr al-qawāʿid al-manṭiqiyya fī sharḥ al-Risāla al-Shamsiyya, 280.1–282.20, ed. M. Bīdārfar (Qom: Enteshārāt Bīdār, 1390 solar. Fifth printing) = 103.21–104.17 (Cairo: Muṣṭafā al-Bābī al-Ḥalabī, 1367/1948. Second printing).
Mīr Dāmād, al-Ufuq al-mubīn, 44.4–45.11 (ed. Nūrānī, reading battiyya instead of ghayr battiyya at 44.4, bi-l-ḥaml al-awwalī at 45.2, bi-l-ḥaml al-shāʾiʿ al-ṣināʿī at 45.4 and tamaththul at 45.7) = 93.1–94.14 (ed. Nājī Eṣfahānī, reading bi-l-ḥaml al-awwalī at 94.5 and taqdīr at 94.10) (with section VII above, penultimate paragraph). Even though Mīr Dāmād does not refer to the qaḍiyya ḥaqīqiyya by name, it is clear that the qaḍiyya ghayr battiyya is de facto the same.
Mīr Dāmād, al-Ufuq al-mubīn, 45.7–11 (ed. Nūrānī) = 94.10–14 (ed. Nājī Eṣfahānī).
Ibid., 61.9 (= safar 1, maslak 1, marḥala 1, manhaj 1, faṣl 7, ishkālāt wa-tafṣiyāt, in the paragraph starting with wa-l-awlā an yūrada …), 244.12–13 (= safar 1, maslak 1, marḥala 1, manhaj 2, faṣl 21, in the paragraph starting with wa-minhā l-ḥāja …).
Ibid., 347.21–348.8, esp. 348.3–8 where he quotes from Ṭūsī’s Talkhīṣ al-Muḥaṣṣal, 30.7–12, but with some slight changes.
Lameer, Conception and Belief, 125–126. Meaning: maybe the focus was for Rāzī on the conditions of the being of beliefs, rather than on the conditions of their essence.
See R. Pourjavady, Philosophy in Early Safavid Iran: Najm al-Dīn Maḥmūd al-Nayrīzī and his Writings (Leiden: Brill, 2011), chapter 2, esp. 80–81; Derāyatī, Fehrestvāreh, vol. 11, 490–492, 498–500.
All Time | Past 365 days | Past 30 Days | |
---|---|---|---|
Abstract Views | 586 | 59 | 6 |
Full Text Views | 249 | 5 | 2 |
PDF Views & Downloads | 98 | 14 | 7 |
*In Islamic philosophy, knowledge is divided into ‘conception’ (taṣawwur) and ‘belief’ (taṣdīq). While there is no objection to dividing knowledge in this way, problems arose when belief was described as being ‘composed’ of conceptions. An early objection to belief’s dependence upon conceptions was based on a self-referential reading of the principle that ‘the unknown cannot be a subject of predication,’ which was another way of saying that ‘what is not conceived, cannot be believed.’ This objection was answered in various ways. While Naṣīr al-Dīn Ṭūsī (d. 672/1274) may have been the first to know how to solve paradoxes of self-reference, it was Sirāj al-Dīn Urmawī (d. 682/1283) who dominated most of the later discussions.
All Time | Past 365 days | Past 30 Days | |
---|---|---|---|
Abstract Views | 586 | 59 | 6 |
Full Text Views | 249 | 5 | 2 |
PDF Views & Downloads | 98 | 14 | 7 |