Journal Philosophy 10

In this lecture, Richter refers to Goethe’s Westoestlicher Diwan in trying to decipher the personality of Rumi. In classical Orientalist language, Richter traces the social and historical forces which would have influenced Rumi’s life and work, his relationship with his father and with Shams-i-Tabriz. Finally, Richter attempts to find a method by which means the full significance of Rumi’s contribution to Persian literature can be assessed.

Who is brave enough in his lifetime to search for rare and less well-known subjects, might be following the hint of a strong personality (whom he unconsciously wishes to meet in a far off region of his mind) or the attitude of his more beautiful self (that wishes to create the pure and free expression of itself with the unsaid and unseen). We intend to look at the Persian poet and mystic Djalal al-Din Rumi - his works and his character. How many questions and expectations could be linked to this name, which is not known to everyone in Occident? I guess they will be of a more general as well as of a more special nature and thus urge us into a lively discussion. They also fill us with pleasure, since they attracted us whenever we were dealing with the Master of our Nation. So we can read the following about our subject in Goethe’s West-oestlicher Diwan.²

The treatment of a character so full of life asks for real effort, but Goethe gave us more than a superficial reason to attempt it. With Goethe, those almost invisible and unheard of characters can come up to us and we will joyfully welcome them. The gardens of the Orient will take us in, while not to estrange us from our own country.

In Goethe’s Divan all groups of the oriental history are colorfully mixed up - as if in preparation for a game about to start. It is indeed the whole Orient, which is opening up in front of our eyes. And then again in the multitude of all its forms and relations, which invite for a special evaluation. In the multitude the will for the whole! History and art as one. Could this history have been written without poetry? We will answer this question with an analogy, which we will find in the life and work of this Persian singer whose name precedes this lecture.

If we try to put all the historical dates of the life of Djalal al-Din Rumi into an appropriate context, we will find that his life was in many ways quite typical for the development of an oriental genius. At the hand of his father Muhammad Ibn Husain al-Hatibi with the honorific title Baha al-Din Walad, he crossed the Middle East at an early age already. In the year 1212 AD he had to leave his hometown Balkh (in Afghanistan) being no more than five years old. Reliable sources tell us that Baha Al-Din’s popularity caused the ruling Lord Charizmshah to be jealous of him. The close relationship with the Sultan or maybe courtly intrigues besides the interest of the people might have made his situation difficult enough. They went on the pilgrimage to Mecca, never to return. Via Nishapur, they firstly came to Bagdad, which at that time had not ceased to be the biggest town of the Islamic world.

Some decades before, the building activities of the Abbasids had enriched the town with many monuments and treasures, that can still be seen today. The political influence of the ruling dynasty was not as strong anymore. That it had survived at all was due to the fact that the different ethnic, social and religious contradictions had not surpassed the natural limits of a common cultural will. This will had grown since the 8^th century, the beginning of the Abbasid rule (when the Arabic world-Reich- became Islamic) to an extent that it was in need of an authoritarian representation on the outside. The natural mid-position in Mesopotamia had called for this piece of earth and with it this town to become the intersection of far-reaching oriental forces of life, which could lead to valuable mixtures and considerable spiritual wealth. Although they might also just disperse like rays from a center, so that clever statesman-like authority would be needed to keep them from disintegrating. The more this protection became weakened, the more the spiritual productivity of this metropolis declined and the number of radical voices grew.

The Shi’a, originally a religious-political opposition from the times of the first caliphs, were increasingly pushed out of political life into the religious sphere. Instead, secret societies, fed especially by Persian blood, grew stronger, enriched by some extra in-put as it was known since the time of the pre-Islamic Gnosis. At the famous Nizamija in Bagdad (university founded at the mid 11^th century) orthodox Islam was being taught, although, as in other places no longer as Mohammed’s true teachings. The young Djalal al-Din could probably only gain some superficial impression once he arrived in the town. His religious impulse, formed by his intelligent and pious father, was strengthened most once he came to Mecca. Baha al-Din now took the road to Malatia, where he stayed for four years and moved then further to Larindah. Here he spent seven years, devoted to the education of his son. Then both of them were invited by the Seljuq Prince of Rum, Allah al-Din Kaikubad, to his residence at Konia, the old Iconium in Asia Minor. Here Baha al-Din died in 1231 AD, a recognized and famous man. With the exception of a short stay in Aleppo and Damascus, Djalal al-Din remained in Konia until his death in 1273 AD. Never did this town reach the same level of spiritual importance again.

Art and science were flourishing under the protection of the Seljuq Sultans. These Sultans themselves – in a strange game of past and present - lived by a large and consciously preserved Iranian legacy, which was neither based on their blood nor the soil of their realm. Their princely names they borrowed from the old Persian legends of the heroes. Their court-life and building program followed Eastern patterns. The means offered by nature were rich and beautiful. Medieval travelers mention the healthy climate of the town, its wealth in water, the rich vegetation. On these healthy grounds arose the clear forms of the towers and walls enriched by decorations of narrow-winding Qur’anic verses, pillars with cupolas, minarets and arches of mosques and madrasas. The colors were shining through the unique fayence and tile mosaics. Whatever was spared by the storms of the following centuries modern ignorance has pulled down little by little. Only great ruins point us to the past.

We called Rumi’s life to a certain degree typical. This is appropriate if we look at courtly approval and disapproval as decisive influences on the form of spiritual education. The echo of social dependence resounds deeply in the soul of the Oriental. This overwhelming power could cause spiritual powers to penetrate into the whole of the Orient. At the same time it almost found its opposite in the thirst of knowledge of untamable glowing souls who lived absorbed in themselves, mysteriously carefree about the sorrows of the coming day. They were able to keep a secret second account of the household of their individual soul’s life. Like the distinction between today and tomorrow, the handling of here and there was understood. The restless never-ending wandering, an insistent counter-reaction to the despotic gestures which caused the public to kneel down and rise again. Freedom that creates culture? In this case a split term.

Far in the East lies the homeland of Rumi, his youth brings him to the South of Arabia and in the North-West of the Asian continent, he - who had seen Persia only as a child -composes the most beautiful songs of the Persian tongue. But let us also remember the lively encouragements that destiny granted him since his early days. Besides the attentive leadership of the father, history tells us also about the philosopher Burhan al-Din Tirmidi as the first teacher of Rumi. The personal relationship with the wise master always reaches for the hidden treasures of a pure oriental soul. Quickly the flames are flaming in the hands of the discoverer, one does not quite know how, the wonderful glow of revelation that dazzles the eyes and consumes flesh and blood. With joy and eagerness his pupil began the study of sciences which in its extent conformed with the various needs of the time. After the death of the teacher, the caring hand of the father was more needed than ever. And once again destiny granted him the chance to look up to a master and friend who was to determine the last and most important change in Rumi’s spiritual life. It was the mystic Shams-i-Tabrizi, under whose name Rumi was later to write his works.³ This periodical rise up to the highest experience of Islamic-oriental spirituality under the employment of greatest tension of unrest and pleasure, self-being and ethereal surrender to the great role-model in such a fundamental way cannot be called anything other than typical.

Once again we look at Rumi’s life. Face to face with the tensions of the small circle destiny provided greatest disturbances in a far-reaching historical context. His hometown, Balkh, lay in the midst of great political contradictions. The lasting change of dynasties, the persistent and uncompromising pressure of the Eastern peoples, the mainly unequal interplay of the most different streams of life, never allowed the Iranian lands to calm down again after the break-down of the Sassanian empire. After the victorious approach of the Islamic Arabs, the promising cultural and political bodies of East Asia were to be tied to a center that was lying out-side their own territory. The shimmering cloth of the Islamic empire was first woven from Syria and later from Mesopotamia. But before the last knot had been affixed, the whole structure was torn apart already by the weight of all the single movements which were nourished from the outside as well as the inside. Whether good or bad, love of life has torn this shroud hastily enough. The East had its share in it – and how it had been working against it! But the whole event remains tragic for us. The East was neither unified inside itself nor happy in its opposition. A half-national renaissance, building on the lost Persia, became linked up with semi-important political courts.

In all the confusion of this confrontation Ghazna wins special recognition sometime in the 11^th century under the leadership of its wise and happy Amir Mahmood. Those days were also happy for Balkh. Quickly the power of the Ghaznavids declined after Mahmood’s death and Balkh became the bone of contention of new dynasties. At the beginning of the 13^th century it seemed the town was yet again flourishing under the Protectorate of the victorious Charizmshahe. At the same time Rumi was born, a symbol of hope. But doesn’t it seem that when the father and the son left the town its lucky star came down as well? Just ten years later the East was hit by the greatest catastrophe: the Mongols broke into the Persian residences and brought these lands a history whose sad effects are well-known to us. Most important is the impetus for all this. The deep-seated opposition of West and East within the Islamic Empire had reached its peak. Charizmshahe had the idea of confronting the Caliph in Bagdad with a Shi’a counter-Caliph. In this struggle for life of the Islamic idea, Bagdad thought of a device, that not even the devil could have surpassed: one had to stir up the Mongols against the enemy. With this the magic spell was spoken, the magic spell that gave the pressing and threatening powers of the Far East goal and force. The Mongols fulfilled their act of destruction thoroughly. After a few decades Hulagu was ruling in Bagdad.

Thus we can see at once the main forces of the Orient confronting each other. How dark this valley lies before us and we still hear of its worldly sorrows until today. Destiny has united them (the main forces) in a heroic rhythm. The concentrated human will and its utopia were faced by superhuman – driven movements of the life of the peoples. And into the middle of this, an astonishing symbol of this confrontation was planted. Our poet takes his way from the East. The unrest of the coming events leave him unharmed on the outside but effect his inner contemplation. From the down-fall of his exterior world he saves the noble treasures of the oriental spirit into the dome of his inner visions. The deadly peace of the Islamic Mongols is being drowned by the relieving song of the living peace. And also the worldly expression is not forgotten. In the West-Islamic territory Rumi finds a peaceful and unharmed homeland. Its history likewise includes an East-Western wave in the 11^th century when the Turkish tribes, the Seljuqs came. But this process was successfully exploited by the Islamic East-Asian powers. The wave can thus only be compared to the Mongol invasion in its contradiction to it. The Seljuq-dynasty in Konia was, at the time when Rumi came, an oasis of the Orient. In despite of dynastic quarrels, Konia remained all his lifetime in the same position. The confrontations with the Mongols had probably also here effects. But they only gave proof to the high degree (in comparison to the neighbors) of political and social reason, which was to give this country power and dignity.

Great and thoughtful seem these historical contradictions. They express themselves in a monument that only takes part in the history as a symbol. Yet, it was much more than a symbol. The true faces of history are probably quite different from those which appear as a result of logical reconstructions. The true history is past processes. They are even more historical the quieter they came and employed their own laws. They have to pass quickly so as to give the pressing forces of nature another martyr. Historical is that Alexander whom Hamlet was addressing. Hence history does not get into conflict with time. History is life passed, the apotheosis of eternal oblivion. That what cannot be seen anymore because it did not have a contract with the future. Everything contemporary and natural, the things of the day! Thus such a history cannot leave traces of time-surpassing peculiarities. Willingly and self-content, history obeys the manager of the higher order. But against its inner wills it always releases creators and witnesses, who are not content with silent admiration. They call for the supra-history. With vigor they escape the stream of life and force their moment into a form. Certainly life will step over them and beyond them but coming time will see the heroic ruins of this effort. Thus one should not speak of history but supra-history or meta-history. Since everything we know well, are the unhistorical efforts of the past, not to go on but to stay. The temple of Paestum and the Acropolis or the ruins of Ekbatana –aren’t they much more than history? The same holds true for this other Alexander, whose appearance has delighted so many hours of scientific work. Never-ending is the row of such unforgotten figures and things, which float, like the spirit over the waters, over the plains of history. Because of them history seems vivid, tangible to us.

This simple fact has far-reaching consequences, because we do not intend to express old terms in new expressions. We would not be interested in challenging the common notion of history as it has come down to us if it wasn’t for its insistence on materialistic interpretation. The deepest understanding for this issue came from the German Romantics. It has relived the trembling tensions of creation. The German Romantics answered the icy coldness of rationalism with a decisive turn to the natural side of the being of man. The laws of human life can only be derived from projections of processes i.e.: history- the vital, tangible, lasting, contradictory, fighting creation of humanity. When during the last century the effort to understand arts historically was being exerted, they were probably in need of a hint that would point them to such a supra-historical constellation of the scientific material. Instead its interpretation was exposed to mechanical derivations and extended to endless causalities of smaller and smallest facts. As if history could ever become contemporary. Whatever reaches from the past into our time, our reason can only be used to reflect upon itself and the immediate entirety of our life. The researcher connects his intellectual visions to a unity, which he has to justify with his consciousness and his social mission. He is only allowed to consider the small things as long as he can be certain of the higher and highest relations. Thus a carefully interpreted term for history could help the self-attitude of scientific work. And here we find again Goethe’s Divan in front of us, ready for everyone who wants to consider its method.

It does indeed sound a little ironic, that we need to go all the way to the Orient to make such impulses among us Germans effective again. But we can counter such arguments, because the new forms of unity the researcher is now able to produce with his hands, to see with his visionary eyes give new evidence of his productive pleasure in creation. Also the results are needed for the common requirements of education of our time. In this framework the knowledge and understanding gained by the studies of the Orient are more suitable to the interests of his surroundings than a mere materialistic approach. The understanding of processes and their categorization in the best-researched and highest relationships of reason are the basic laws of movement for a scientist of the arts. In addition to this hint of the sovereignty of the recognizing will, let us also answer with the word of national science. The laws of room and blood of a well-established cultural unit will thus (when this kind of scientific work has been reunited with the divine drive of the creator) be able to distinguish the spirit in the world of knowledge.

In regard to the destruction that is occurring, everything that will help to regain a national vision will be useful for human society. That is why it should be hoped that many German scientists might be given the West-Oestlicher Divan. Because it is not only an account of factual events but an independent historical-poetical vision, which like the sun in spring will melt the crust of ice on the historian’s winterish mistake. He will see the historical expressions of life brought into an historical unity, a unity that lives in his immediate present. He will see that the scientific judgment is true because it is also beautiful. In its present the Divan thus becomes the proof for the form of creation and knowledge, which characterizes all historical legacy. This legacy cannot come about without the categories of a personal and self-determined life. Most of this legacy, that we know, is in literary form - a composition created by the refined will of its creator. That is why all efforts to find the true and real facts lead only to relative results. The individual movements of the literary creation cannot be thought further. Every collector will admit to this. Whoever is aiming higher, will find in the science of literature an elastic tool for history. Since he is now looking into the faces of other figures. He is reading from their lips. And if he is wise he will not pull down the last veil that hampers him from seeing the final truth. He probably could not bear it. How carefully the one who wants to see has to take care of himself. With distance and respect he has to approach literature like a painting. If you look at a painting too closely you will only see meaningless strokes and dots. But we are only looking for our own purposes. With a poetic and reasonable mind Goethe has looked at the Orient. Thus the Divan can be interpreted in two ways for we Germans: firstly as an example of an epistemology, which will lead to exemplary freedom. Secondly as an immortal piece of art which answers the questions of life with poetry. The one who will take this book into the canon of his Oriental studies will certainly find the right attitude towards the literatures of the Orient. He will slowly realize the importance of the studies of literature for in the treasures of the Persian literature he will find a reflection of his own spirit.

Rumi has lead us on the way of his own life into the present of our own generation; this art he will quickly explain to us on the grounds of the literary traditions of Central Asia. Rumi’s heritage stands in an obvious connection with a certain literary heritage. It is firstly related to the two names of Sana’i and Ferid-al-Din Attar ^4. The biographers like to quote Rumi saying, "Attar is spirit and Sana’i its two eyes. I followed Attar and Sana’i." If you know Rumi’s poetry it is easy to believe this. Sana’i died in the middle of the 12^th century ⁵ and is considered the first important mystic-didactic poet among the Persians. Attar continued along the same way. But the literary-historical relations are much deeper than that. Let us confine ourselves to some remarks about the Persian literary history.

The dependence of Rumi on those role-models is certain, especially for his epic-didactic literature about which we will talk in the following. It is different for his divan, which has to be considered separately from other works. Although it is obviously also connected to something else. People tended to organize Persian literature according to historical periods or leading personalities. A well-known work of that kind is the very clear and tasteful canon as we have seen it in Goethe’s Divan. But a profound discourse on Persian literature demands a different principle of order. The beginning of the neo-Persian literature, which has been written under the influence of Islam is not known to us in great detail. From the 9^th and 10^th centuries we know some pieces of a rather balanced character with highly developed forms of expression. The poets have already taken on the Arabic meter, thus disciplining the rhythmic and linguistic niceties of the Persian tongue. One tended to list these poets in the correct timeframe as followers of specific amirs, who supported the arts. History gives a list of names, which are connected to this courtly art. They allow us only to establish an outer characterization. They do not tell us much about their share in the inner development of Persian literature. But exactly this issue calls for investigation. The specific peculiarities of these monuments remain dubious. Their evaluation is hampered because the poets are floating around their own works in an intangible fog. Specific personalities can only be associated once a specific literary term is being mentioned. If it occurs now that the influence of the personality of the creator goes beyond his literary work and participates in different literary traits, this personality cannot provide the ground for a scientific order of the history of literature.

For the Persian history of literature such doubts are quite appropriate. Not only the early period shows this disproportion, but it is also reflected in mid and later periods if not to say in all Middle Eastern art of the word. New methods have to be sought for, which present the Persian literary monuments in all their intensity and changeability. We are dealing with a history of literary equivalents. A good idea of such ‘self-history’ is given by the Persians in the distinguished forms of their poetry. How these distinctions are to work in specific cases remains unclear, and could probably be established if we were to analyze the monuments. We know the Shahname by Firdausi, which (although it is one of the oldest monuments of neo-Persian poetry) leads us already to the peak of epic poetics. At the same time, lyric art shows also already the different kinds of abilities of the Persians, which in their relationship to each other and to later developments have not been studied sufficiently by the Occident. Also everything that has been termed romantic or didactic needs further investigation. If you look for example at the canon mentioned above, which can be found in Hammer’s Persian Literature ⁶ , you will find Firdausi ⁷ as the noblest representative of epos, Enweri of the qasid, Nizami of the romantic, Rumi of the mystic, Sadi of the ethic, Hafis of the lyric. But terms like epos, mystic and ethic are not on the same literary-scientific level. They can only be understood separately in different subjects. Von Hammer had used this method to give a first great overview over Persian literature. His geniality lies in the fact that he thought of different types of human spirits to describe this history. Through his loose usage of terms he actually provided the starting points for an analytical work. And we are not talking yet about all those shimmering treasures that he revealed and Goethe thankfully employed. In this loose usage of terms first hints are hidden, which help a critical orientation. They have been hidden so far and only now through new discoveries they become visible again. Such a hint is, for example, the categorization of Rumi as the greatest mystic. Now the question arises whether the term mystic can actually be used in the literary field.

The history of the Orient confirms that Rumi was a member of the mystic movement (as a religious-historical term). When Rumi, after the death of his father, came to stay in Damascus for a while, he got to know Ibn al-Arabi (d.1249) and his pupils, some of whom were to become famous afterwards, too. He also met with Shams al-Tabrizi there first. If we take the dates, to consider Rumi a mystic, we should likewise be allowed to expect his participation in the laws of the inner movement. The system of Ibn al-Arabi can be called the universalism of Oriental mysticism. Inside this system all extreme attempts of the spirit have been connected, which the speculative and contemplative desire for salvation of the Muslims created and developed in previous times ⁸ . The prehistory of this system leads into a wide garden with many strange and colorful blossoms.

The exceptional tendency of the East Asian people to overstress personal religiousness, which slowly loses the relationship with anything surrounding it, has produced its own ecstatic language. This language became as public as the language which was used by the Gnostic, and pseudo-Islamic speculation. The writers copied these forms of expression into their texts and popularized the mystic quickly. Thus they met with the literary tendencies of religious literature of edification, which without the extreme forms had already reached a certain degree of literalisation of religious ideas. This deep does the mystic penetrate into the Islamic Eastern Asian spirit, likewise into the history of its literary form of expression. The play of colors of fantastic terminology, reflected by the ancient Gnostic ideas, had found a strange new form of continuation. Certain expressions of terminology became re-interpreted as stylistic expressions in the Neo-Persian lyric. Examples will not be given at this point. But modern research confirms what has been said here. The more general often intricate methods of the history of religion, of linguistic and literary comparisons as well as the cultural history of the Middle East have led to a unified demand for an interpretation of the mystic history in view of its own literature. It is obvious that we cannot understand any historical phenomena without having knowledge of the primary literature. But here it becomes also clear that it is only with the help of literary analyses that we will truly understand the Islamic-mystic form of life. Other approaches will not help us at all actually. They have only brought us so far as to the point where we recognize that a remarkable spiritual ability of the Orient depends innately on its cultural form of expression.

If we thus use the term of mystical-Persian literature, we mean a religious literary genre, which can be distinguished from other genres. Changeability and the ability of creating tension of this literature depend to a high degree on the form. A mystical ghazel is probably different from mystical-epic poetry, but how? If we say that the religious content is dependent upon on literary principles of form, we have to ask to what extend we can actually speak of the mystical as a separate literary style. Maybe the forms are already revealed in the non-mystical genres of literary movements, which are based on an immediate spiritual background which forces the religious will of creation to something related -but out-side the religious sphere. Hafis would be a good example for this. Since the evidence for all of this is only of fragmentary nature we cannot take this assumption for certain. It is thus a task to analyze and judge the Persian works historically in their own style.

The term style is here to be understood in a wider sense: as the form of the monument, which allows for the definition of its being and character. Knowledge about the personality of the poets, which came from non-literary sources, would not hamper such task. No, it would be easier to explain the intricacy of the personality of the Orient, the parallelism of the literary ways of expression in which we find one and the same person- in these over-strong and over-personal literary laws of formation. Also it would be possible to recognize the special share of each poet in each case and thus draw more specific conclusions about his personality. Thus we should have a certain literary term in the end which would allow us to have a specific idea about the personality of Rumi on one hand and about Rumi’s works based on an analyses of style and contents, which would allow for comparisons with other works on the other hand. Thus Rumi’s share in the development of Persian literature would become evident on the basis of a productive and correct judgment.

Research of this kind is promising, because it takes the historical context into account as well. The relationship between literature and history can even be better explained if we look at the mission of mystic literature in its surrounding world. Rumi’s mystical ghazels were meant to be for the personal meditation of the people of the order. They had an indirect liturgical meaning for a close, religious society. From early on, mystical concentration is related in Islam to a life in an order. Rumi founded a special order in Konia, the Mewlewis, which existed until the year 1925 and vanished with the oncoming of the new Turkish era ⁹. An impressive tradition came thus to an end: it had been the custom that the abbot was a descendent of Rumi. In this visible living on of the master, the younger generation could be inspired again and again. They experienced their mission especially in this dancing form of meditation that we find so incredible and mysterious. Usually they were accompanied by a characteristic and melancholic music of the flute. Naturally, Rumi’s works were considered holy literature. Thus his following served, above all, the purpose of poetry. This phenomenon has to be kept in mind for stylistic analyses, i.e., the relation of need, which the mystical art of the word has with society - the direct or indirect consideration of the audience, that the poet is addressing and to whom he speaks in special tones or voices to further his goals. This sociological task of the research of style has already been employed for the poetry of the Occident. It promises in this case to lead to important and singular results, too. The literary-religious meditation is pressing towards the society and cannot be understood by historical analyses without considering the social background. We remember the almost mysterious importance, which the image of the friend and the master as such, has reached in neo-Persian literature. This thought of style is closely and necessarily related to a well-established social tradition. It also helped Rumi to find his words.

The friendship between him and Shams-i-Tabrizi was of the deepest kind. Tabrizi came to Konia in the year 1244/5, when our poet was already enjoying his name as an important theologian. The mystical preaching of Tabrizi gave Rumi’s life a new meaning and content. Tabrizi became his teacher. History tells us many stories about this friendship. But also without these legends, the mystical esoteric in Rumi’s poetry gives a clear idea about the close relationship of their souls. It doesn’t matter that we do not know much about Tabrizi as a historical figure. The mystical inspiration of the pupil by the master is indeed a consistent vademecum of every teaching relationship in the history of the Islamic mystic. As teacher of Tabrizi we often hear about Rukn al-din Sindshasi. He was the one to send his student to Rumi. Even if this does not hold true, it gives some idea about tradition in mystical context. Mystics continue this chain even back to Muhammad and Ali. The end of Shams-al-Din is as surprising as his coming. In the masses of the street he suddenly disappeared with the oldest son of Rumi. Whether he was killed by an angry crowd, possibly for his offensive arrogance ¹⁰, or whether it was just an accident, no-one knows. For what is important in terms of sociological analyses is this: these two figures, Rumi and Tabrizi, demonstrate the common goals of their relationship in an artistic expression, to further an intimate social purpose. This becomes even more effective once one person involves another person in this process, thus they eliminate their personal value of being for a more general appearance that can be typified.

But with these general hints we don’t want to talk about the results already. The aim was to put the different subjects involved while dealing with Rumi into proper perspective.

Notes:

^{1- This is a translation of
Gustav Richter, Persiens Mystiker Dschelál-eddin
Rumi: Eine Stildeutung in drel Vortraegen, Breslau:
Frankes Verlag uind Druckerei, Otto Borgmeyer 1933, chapter 1. His German
translations have been replaced by English equivalents. All the footnotes are
the work of the editor as the original has no references.

2- See Shaykh Abdal-Qadir al-Murabit’s Fatwa on Goethe,
which brings to light certain proofs of Goethe’s acceptance of Islam. (Diwan
Press, London: 2001)
3- The taking of Shams-i-Tabriz’s name came from Rumi’s
intense, spiritual love for this mystic, to the extent that he perceived no
division between them. See also Reynold A. Nicholson, Selected Poems from the
"Divan-i Shams-i Tabriz" (1898; reprinted., Cambridge, 1961)
4- Rumi’s
contemporaries, Ibnu’l-Farīd (d. 1235) and ‘Attār (d.1229) wrotes
moving verses about emotion, wonder, love and the ‘sheer incomprehension
attendant upon the mystical experience’ (Fakhry, Majid. A
History of Islamic Philosophy, 2^nd ed.,
Columbia University Press, New York: 1983, p.255)

5-
Abū’l-Majd Majdūd Sanā’i (d. 1131) attacked rationalistic
philosophy as a way of coming to know Allah. See Annemarie Schimmel’s Mystical
Dimensions of Islam, (The University of North Carolina
Press, Chapel Hill: 1975) pps 18-19

6- Hammer-Purgstall, Joseph von. Geschichte der schönen
Redekünste Persiens. (Vienna: 1818)
7- Qusta
ibn Lūqā al-Firdaus (d. 900) “excelled in philosophy, geometry, and
astronomy… The list of his philosophical writings
includes The Sayings of the Philosophers, The Difference between Soul
and Spirit and A Treatise on the Atom" (Fakhry, Majid. A
History of Islamic Philosophy, 2^nd ed., Columbia University
Press, New York: 1983, p.15)

8- See
Affīfī, ‘Abū’l-‘Alā’. The
Mystical Philosophy of Muhyid’Din Ibnu’l-‘Arabi
(Cambridge: 1938)

9-"The activities of the Mevlevi dervishes in Turkey,
along with those of other orders, were banned by Atatürk in 1925." (Schimmel,
Annemarie. Mystical Dimensions of Islam, p.185)
10- "The sources describe Shams as an overpowering
person of strange behaviour who shocked people by his remarks and his harsh
words." (Schimmel, Annemarie. Mystical Dimensions of Islam, p.313)

Soul, its reality and its perfectionary journey in Mulla
Sadra’s philosophy

Muhammad Khājavī, Gilān University, Iran

Abstract

The soul is the first perfection of the natural body,
which is created, when the preparedness of the body becomes perfect; it
subsists, when it reaches its own perfection. Hence, its disposal in bodies
is corporeal while its intellection of its essence and its maker is
spiritual. This distinguishes it from the separated intellects, which are
spiritual both in their essence and action, as well as from the natures,
which are corporeal in both aspects.

The human soul has three modalities of perception:

the natural modality, the locus of whose manifestation is the external
and internal senses;
the modality of formal apparitions, whose locus of manifestation is the
internal senses;
the intellectual modality, whose locus of manifestation is the rational
faculty, when it is actually obtained.

The first modality is the locus of the potentiality and
the sowing place of the spirits and the place, where intentions and
beliefs are grown, while the two other modalities are the abode of
completion and of actuality, and the place gathering the fruit. Hence, the
soul is the subject (hâmil) of the body and its form, not vice versa; and
the body is a descendent level of the soul and an existential trace of the
separated spirit, whose properties manifest themselves in the body. A
human being (insân) is the totality of the soul and the body, i.e., the
human being of the sovereignty (malakût) is the soul, while the "mortal"(bashar)
human being is the body, both of them existing by the same existence. When
the intellectual (noetic) existence is obtained, both of them become one
thing. Hence, the real body is the body, in which the light of sense and
life is essential, not accidental. The relation of this body to the soul
is that of light to the sun. When the soul reaches its perfection and
becomes the intellect in act (‘aql bi-l-fî‘l), all its faculties also
ascend and reach their perfection together with the soul’s essence.

Undoubtedly, the elements were given existence in order to
receive life and spirit, and the first thing which received the traces of life,
was the life of nourishment (ghidhā’),
growth (rushd) and production (procreation) (tawlīd);
it was followed by the life of sensation and motion, and then by the life of
knowledge and distinction (tamyīz).
Each of these kinds of life has a perfect form, through whose mediation the
traces of life, by means of the faculties which serve it, effuse on the matter,
and this form is called "the soul". Its lowest level is the vegetal
soul, the middle level is the animal soul, and the highest level is the rational
(rationally speaking) soul. These three levels have a common essential and
definitive (limiting) meaning, and each active faculty from which the traces
emerge not in a uniform manner is called the soul, therefore the discussion of
the soul is a part of the natural science.
Philosophers have established that the soul is the first
perfection of the natural body, from which the secondary and subsequent
perfections emerge, by means of the tools, whose help and assistance the soul
seeks in the acts of life (such as sensation and voluntary movement), and the
specific feature of the first perfection of the natural body, which it effects
by the mediation of the tool ¹of the action, is its being the soul (nafsiyyātihā).
Hence, every faculty of the natural body which acts by employing and subjugating
another faculty is called "the soul".
The soul is the substance which is independent in its
essence, but in its acts it needs a tool and becomes related to corporeous
bodies (ajsād) and corporeal
bodies (ajsām), i.e., its
relation to bodies is one of governorship (tadbīr),
but in its government and operation (tasarruf) it needs another spiritual
substance, whose spirituality is lesser than that of the soul. This intermediary
is called "the animal spirit" (al-rūh
al-hayawānī) and it, in turn, needs another intermediary
– the heart (qalb).
At first, in the beginning of its engendering, the soul is
empty of any conceptual (tasawwurī)
and assentive (tasdīqī)
knowledge, and its first knowledge is the knowledge of its own essence, and its
degree of existence in the embryonic state is within the limits of the vegetal
degree, and in the stage of an infant it reaches the degree of the animal, and,
after its perfection and ripening, it reaches the degree of the human being –
yet the latter still belongs to the first of the several modalities, which are
possessed by the rational soul. After the stage of the material intellect (al-‘aql
al-hayalānī), which is void of any forms and conceptions,
it reaches the stage of the habitual intellect (al-‘aql bi-l-malaka),
in which it obtains some of the forms – and this is the very stage, in which
it obtains the knowledge of its own essence and, after passing through several
stages of perfection, it reaches the level of actuality and the intellect in act
(al-‘aql bi-l-fī’l), and
then ascends to the level of the acquired intellect (al-‘aql
al-mustafād), which is the last degree of perfection accessible
to it.
The soul is all the faculties and a single totality, and the
principle and the furthest limit of them, because every higher faculty is such
in regard to what is lower than it (i.e., the faculties which it subjugates).
Looking from another point of view, we see that the soul
descends from the highest station of separation to the station of the nature and
the station of the sensor and the sensed; and in its descendent station its rank
is that of natures and senses, since, as all natural species are present in the
intellect in a loftier and nobler manner, so all natural, vegetal and animal
faculties exist through the existence of the soul in a loftier and nobler way
than through their own existence, which they enjoy in their particular places of
imposition (mawādi‘).
According to this principle, in the act of touching the soul becomes the toucher,
and it is likewise in the acts of smelling and tasting, where the soul is the
one who smells and tastes – and this is the case with the lower senses but,
when the soul reaches the station of imagination, it becomes the form-giving
faculty; and, when it ascends from the kingdom of the outer sensation to the
realm of the intellection and noetic perception, it unites with the active
intellect and itself becomes the active intellect. Hence, the station of the
soul consists in its ascending from the levels of the bodily sensation to the
stations of the sacred intellects and in its unification with every intellect
and intelligible thing.
The precondition of the noetic perception and intellection of
any outer thing is the transmission of the reality of this thing from its
corporeal kind of existence to the noetic modality of existence. Hence, the
difference between the sensed (sensory perceived) heaven and the noetically
perceived heaven lies in their different kinds of existence, and every existent,
whose existence is that of light, one-by-reality, non-veilable, non-multiplicable
and non-differentiable, is intelligible (noetically perceivable) by its essence,
while every existent, whose existence is corporeal and material, is unknown,
non-unifiable and absent (i.e., hidden) from its own self, not to mention the
other, except (that it is perceivable) through the weak radiance which comes
from the faculties, which effuse on it from this (luminous) existence. In any
case, the truth is with Plato, who held that the soul is like the prisoner in
the body – the one, who restrains his wrath and remains silent, and its
release from this prison consists in its breaking the cave of this world and
ascending to the noetic world, which is the world of its own.

In the “journey of the soul” of the “Asfār”
Sadra says:

as long as the human soul is an embryo and a captive of
the prison of the womb, its degree is that of the vegetal soul – with its
particular degrees and levels – which it obtains when the nature has
passed through the stages of the mineral faculties. Hence, the human embryo
is the plant ("growing thing") (nabāt)
in actuality and the animal in potentiality, because it does not possess
neither sense, nor motion (in actuality), and its being the animal in
potentiality is its distinctive differentia, which distinguishes it from
other plants and makes it a species which differs from other vegetal
species. When a child comes out of the womb of his mother, his soul, until
the beginning of the formal ripening, possesses the degree of the animal
souls and, in this state, the individual is a smooth-skinned animal (al-hayawān
al-basharī) in actuality and human being with
the rational soul in potentiality. After that, his soul, through cogitation
and reflection, and the employment of the practical intellect, perceives the
(noetic) things and the faculty of this trait is a luminous and noetic one,
possessor of a firmly rooted and sound existence, the one upon whom pours
forth the effusion of the principle, which is the intellect in actuality,
i.e., the substance which is higher than the soul and lower than the active
intellect; and the affair continues in a similar way (i.e., the soul
continues to employ the practical intellect) until the beginning of the
spiritual ripeness and the inner growth, by means of employment of the inner
acquired traits and characteristics – and this ripeness usually comes at
the age of forty.

Hence, in this level he is a "human being, who
possesses the rational soul" (al-insān
al-nafsānī) in actuality and an angelic
human being or a devil in potentiality, and in the rising he is gathered
either with the angels or with
the devils, i.e., if he goes along the straight path of tawhīd, and his
intellect reaches perfection by means of knowledge, and he thus reaches the
station of separation and deliverance from the bodies, he becomes an angel
in actuality, but if he turns aside from the straight
path and proceeds along the path of ignorance and delusion, he becomes one
of the devils or is gathered in the crowd of animals or the throng of
insects". ²

As for the origination (hudūth)
of the human souls, Sadra says that if they were preeternal (qadīm)
in their essence, they would have a perfect substance as regards their innate
disposition (fitra) and essence, and deficiency and imperfection would be
unknown to them – and if there were no deficiency and imperfection in their
essence, as far as their existence is considered, they would not need the tools
and faculties (some of which are vegetal and some – animal). Moreover, should
they be preeternal, their species would consist of a single individual, and in
the world of the (Divine) Command they would not experience any sort of division
and multiplication, because the multiplication of solitaries (=individuals) (afrād)
and the oneness of the species appertain to the specific characteristics of
corporeal things and material bodies, and the thing whose existence is not in
any way connected with the (material) preparedness, motion, and the matter, and
the receiving of activity (infi‘āl),
deserves that its species is confined to a single individual, while, in this
world, the human souls are many in their number and unified in their species.
Hence, the claim of the very preexistence of the individual human souls to their
bodies is absurd, not to mention their preeternity.
Those who are firmly rooted in knowledge hold that the soul
possesses many modes and stages, and believe that it has several existential
states, some of which occur before the nature, some – together with it, and
some – after it. They also claim that the human souls, before they become
connected with the bodies, exist through the perfection of their cause and
occasion, and the perfect occasion entails the occasioned thing, because the
cause is the perfection of its effect. Hence, the soul exists with its occasion,
because its occasion is perfect in its essence and complete in its benefaction (ifāda)
and if a thing is such its effect does not become detached from it. However, the
soul’s operation in the body depends on a specified preparedness and certain
preconditions.
Hence there is no doubt that the soul is originated when the
preparedness of the body becomes complete and that, having reached perfection,
it remains (subsists) after the body, because its cause is eternally subsistent.
When we have ascertained the existence of the soul’s cause before the body and
understood the true meaning of the causation and being caused, as well as the
truth that the essential occasion is the perfection of the occasioned thing and
its furthest limit, there remains no doubt that the soul has existed before the
body through the perfection of its existence and its independence. Hence, what
depends on the body, is only one of the soul’s modalities, and the
preparedness of the body preconditions solely the existence of this lowest
modality and engendered nature, and the aspect of the soul’s need, contingency
and deficiency – not the aspect of its necessity, independence and perfection.
If the body were the precondition of the perfection of its ipseity and the
completion of its existence, the soul would corrupt with the corruption of the
body, as it happens with plants and animals – but it has been demonstrated
that the soul possesses an intellectual faculty which operates in the
intellectual affairs solely through its essence, without a tool – and this is
the sign of the soul’s essential perfection and its aspect of independence
from the body. Hence, we can conclude that in the aspect of the perfection of
its essence the soul exists outside the world of the permanently renewing
existential states.
The truth consists in the fact that the human soul is
corporeal in the aspect of its origination and operation in the body, while it
is spiritual in the aspect of its subsistence and intellection (noetic
perception). Hence, its operation in the bodies is corporeal and its
intellection of its own self and its maker is spiritual, while the separated
intellects are spiritual in both aspects – as regards their essence as well as
their action, but the natures are corporeal both by their essence and action,
and each of these substances (i.e., separated intellects and natures) has a
certain station but this is not the case with the human soul: that is why we
speak of its "going through (different) states" (tatawwur) and
its passing through different levels of existence.
We should also consider the point that the soul possesses a
kind of existence in the world of the intellect and has another kind of
existence in the world of the nature and sensation, and these two kinds of
existence are opposite to each other, because, although in the world of the
intellect the soul is pure and not veiled and separated from the noetic
perfection of its species, there remain many benefits, which cannot be obtained
otherwise except by descending into bodies and tools, according to the
appropriate times, and places, and kinds of preparednesses. Hence, the soul’s
operation in a particular body, after its existence in the universal separated
intellects, is not meaningless and unnecessary; on the contrary, it takes place
because of a great wisdom, which is not fully available to anyone, except God
and those who are firmly rooted in knowledge.
The soul descended from the world of the intellect in order
to take possession of the kingdom, which it did not have in that world, as it
did not have any other existence except the mental existence of dependence.
Besides, in the world of the intellect it was a transparent light and, as such,
could not receive the pleasant reflections (reflected images) and beautiful
forms, therefore it came to this world in order to receive these reflections
through the connection with the dark body (this is like we cover the back side
of the mirror with mercury in order to make it reflect the images).
We call the substance, which brings the soul from deficiency
to perfection "the intellect" ("the bestower of the soul" (ravānbaksh)
in Persian); the rational souls are the radiances of this intellect, and this
human spirit, which, in the aspect of its connection with the body and its
operation in the latter is called "the soul", if we consider it
without regard to this operation and connection with the body, is called
"the intellect"; and both of them (the soul and the body) or rather
all three (the soul, the body and the intellect) have the world of their own,
while these intellects or rational souls – whatever you call them – are
nothing else but rays and radiances of the sun of the universal intellect.
However, we must know that this intellect in the aspect of its connection with a
particular body is called "the rational soul", while in the aspect of
its not being related to a particular body it is called "the separated
intellect". This point has often been misunderstood, therefore the great
sages and philosophers call the human intellects "the particular
intellects" (al-‘uqul al-juz’ī)
and name the separated intellect "the universal intellect".
The rational soul is always aware of itself, so it
permanently knows itself and perceives itself intellectually. Since it knows
itself, the object of its knowledge and intellection is itself, i.e., its
essence is not veiled to itself, and it experiences itself, because
"knowledge", "intellect" and "perception" means
one and the same thing, as this is also the case with the knower, the one who
intelligizes (perceives noetically) (‘āqil)
and the perceiver (mudrik) and the known, the intellectually (=noetically)
perceived (ma‘qul) and the perceived (mudrak). Knowledge
consists in unveiling, manifestation and awareness; hence, the rational human
soul is the knowledge, the knower and the known, i.e., the unification of the
intellect, the one who perceives intellectually and the intellectually perceived
thing takes place in it, and all three are present in it as one reality.
Mawlawi says:
Upon examination, the soul is not anything but the experience

Whoever is more experienced, his soul is greater.
Why is our soul greater than the soul of the animal?
Because it has more experience.
As the secret and the "whatness" of the soul is its
having experience,
Whoever is more aware, has more soul.
Since the soul entails the awareness of the heart,
Whoever is more aware, has a stronger soul. ³

i.e., knowledge which is nothing else but experience, is the
thing which makes a human being the human being. Experience (khabar) is
awareness (āgāhī),
awareness is knowledge, and knowledge is the eternal life. Hence, knowledge and
perception does not differ in their meaning. According to the principle of the
unity of the perception, the perceiver and the perceived, an ipseity which is
aware of itself takes different names if it is considered from different points
of view. So the soul is the image of God and, like God, it is creator and
originator; however, God creates the outer world with its creatures and
existents and bestowes upon them an entified outward existence, while the soul
by means of its imaginal power creates existents in its inner (imaginal) world,
bestowing upon them an existence, which is a purely mental one. The difference
between the things created by God and those created by His creation (i.e., the
soul), lies in the fact that the former produce real traces in the outer world,
while this is not the case with the latter. In the other world (that of the
hereafter), however, the sovereignty of the soul reaches its perfection, and the
heaven and the earth are under its control, and the existence of the things,
created by the soul, becomes real and entified there.
Hence, the soul is the shadow of God and His viceregent on
the earth – and that is exactly what the Prophet had in mind, when he said:
"The king is God’s shadow on the earth", i.e., the king is nothing
else but the pacified soul which has reached perfection, and its kingdom spreads
from one end of the earth to another, and in the world of the hereafter it will
expand even larger.
The soul, in its proper level of perfection, possesses every
attribute of perfection which is possessed by God, although this possession
occurs in a shadowy manner, and the relation of the soul’s creation to the
soul is exactly the same as the relation of God’s creation to Him, i.e., this
is the relation of abiding and the soul is the one through which its creation
abides – of course, this is an affair which happens in the world of the
hereafter because, due to the soul’s weakness and descent to the world of the
nature, its creation does not abide in the outer (sensory perceived) world, but
in the next world this weakness is taken away from the soul; and what the sages
have said on the topic – e.g. in the tale of Salaman and Absal in Ibn Sina’s
"Isharat", and the tale of the dove in
the “Kalyla and Dymna”, as well as in the tale of Hayy bin Yaqzan, which is
told in the “Shifā’”, in response to the question about the cause of
the soul’s falling, - assures us of the soul’s existence before the body in
the lofty world of God and its return to the place, from which it has
fallen and descended; and the sun of its reality and the stars of its faculties
rise and appear over its setting-place – either luminous or dark and obscure.
Hence, the falling of the soul is nothing else but its emergence from its
principal cause and its descent from the presence of its holy noetic father,
while the thing which necessitates its falling is the modes of its actor, and
the directions and the aspects of its cause: when the effects descend and emerge
from their causes, this happens because of (the presence of) the contingent
directions (aspects) and concomitants of the actors, and their deficiencies and
contingences, and the need of the effects in their perfect maker through which
they abide; and , in the symbolic language, these deficiencies were refered to
as "the mistakes" and "transgressions" of our father Adam,
while the emergence of the souls from their causes and actors was called
"the flight from God’s wrath", because the deficient light cannot
endure the intense one in the witnessing place of light.
The soul’s (self-) transmutation from the modality of this
world to that of the hereafter takes place in accordance with its acquired
traits and states, and its assumption of the other-worldly forms – either
luminous and beautiful or ugly and dark – which originate from the soul’s
actions and deeds in this world, these forms being the acquisitions of the soul.
The human soul has three perceptual modalities: 1) the first
one consists of the sensory natural form, and its locus of manifestation is the
five outer senses. This modality is called "the witnessed domain" and
"this world" (al-dunyā);
none of the existents which belong to this modality, is free from motion,
transmutation and transformation, while the existence of its form does not
become separated from the existence of its matter; 2) the second modality
consists of imaginal forms and apparitions, which are absent from the outer
senses, and its locus of manifestation is the inner senses. It is called
"the absent domain" and "the last world". This modality is
divided into the Garden (the abode of the happy ones) and the Fire (the abode of
the miserable ones), while the source of the happiness of the happy ones and the
misery of the miserable ones is their acquired traits and characteristics; 3)
the third modality is the noetic one. It is the abode of those drawn near to God
and the way-station of the intellect and the intelligible. Its locus of
manifestation is the intellectual faculty of man, when it becomes the intellect
in actuality. This modality is a pure good and a sheer light. The first modality
is the locus of the penetration (mahall) of potentiality and preparedness
and the sowing place of the seeds of spirits and the cornfield of intentions and
beliefs, while each of the two remaining modalities is the abode of completion
and actuality, and the place of gathering the fruit and reaping what was sown.
It is important to realize that the soul is the subject
("the carrier") of the body, not vice versa, because the soul, due to
its ascent of these "stairs" (stages / levels) in its existence, is
above the possibility to "follow" ("accompany") the body; on
the contrary, the body is one of the "followers" (=concomitants) of
the soul in some of the lower levels of its existence: this is the soul which
"obtains" the body and carries it in different directions. As long as
the soul is with the body and its faculties and organs, it operates and
administaters it as it wants, and it is capable to make the body ascend and
descend whenever it wishes, regardless of the body’s compoundedness and
heaviness (i.e., when it wants it to ascend, it replaces the body’s heaviness
with lightness, and when it wants it to descend, it changes it lightness to
heaviness). However, the soul cannot rise to the spiritual heaven and ascend to
the garden of spirits and the abode of the happy ones as long as it is connected
with this elemental body – while it is possible, if it possesses the body of
light, which belongs to that (imaginal) world – of course, when it gets rid of
this dark body. The rise to the garden of those drawn near to God and the domain
of the perfect ones – i.e., the separated intelligible forms and the Platonic
images of light -, in turn, is impossible for the soul until it does not become
free from the dimentions and (imaginable) bodies, and does not cut away the
apparitions and likenesses, and is not liberated from both (previous)
existential states (the world of the nature and the world of the imagination).
The body is a descendent level of the soul and the
existential traces (āthār)
and properties of the separated spirit, which manifests itself in the body. The
soul "carries" (=is the subject of) the body, and the body does not
"carry" the soul. The soul administers the body and operates in it,
and the body is subjugated by it (the soul) and follows it. In fact, the soul is
the form of the body and all traces of life, and the putting together of the
opposite elements and giving the form to the organs and bodily members, and the
perception of the outer senses, and other bodily affairs rise from the soul, and
the coagulated (jāmid) body, by
means of the substantial motion, passes through the stations of the sperm-drop,
the clot of congealed blood, and the (foetus) lump, then reaches the stations of
imagination and intellection, and becomes spiritual and unites with the active
intellect, which is none else but the spirit of holiness (rūh
al-qudus).
Hence, whenever the soul obtains the faculty of obtaining
(the things directly, without the mediation of the body) in a greater degree,
the body becomes weaker and feebler, (and this continues) until the soul becomes
abiding through itself and the body perishes, therefore the destruction of the
body is caused by the soul’s departure from it, not vice versa.
The natural body is the shadow and the image of the governing
soul and its faculties, which constitute the psychic other-worldly human being,
and the human being of isthmus (barzakh), with its psychic faculties and
bodily parts, is the shadow and image of the noetic other-worldly human being,
with all its noetic directions and aspects, so this natural body, with its parts
and accidences, is the shadow of the shadow and the image of the image of what
is in the noetic human being. Hence, the noetic human being effuses its light
upon the lower natural human being through the mediation of the psychic human
being.
The human being is the totality of the soul and the body,
i.e., the human being of the sovereignty (malakūt)
is the soul, and the mortal natural human being (insān
basharī tabi‘ī) consists in the body, and both of these
human beings, notwithstanding the difference between their levels and stations,
exist by one existence, as if they were one thing which has two sides, one of
which is changeable and perishable, and annihilates, and is like the branch of
the tree, and the other one is immutable and subsistent, and is like the root of
the tree. Whenever the soul reaches (a higher degree of) perfection in its
existence, the body becomes purer and subtler, and it becomes more attributed to
the soul, and their unity becomes stronger, because purity, unity and
unification is the mode (of the existence) of the imaginal body. However, as the
thing possesses its thingness through its form, this unity is like the unity
with the natural body but when the soul achieves the noetic level of existence,
both of them (the soul and the body) become one thing without any otherness, and
the opinion of the common people, who hold that the soul, when it changes its
this-worldly existence to the other-worldly one, leaves its body and wanders
around like a naked man who has taken off his clothing, is false. The cause of
this opinion, in turn, is their false belief that the natural body, which is
essentially administered and operated by the soul, is this coagulated corporeous
body (jasad jamādī), which
is thrown away by the soul after the natural death, while this is not the case.
On the contrary, this dead (lifeless) body does not belong to the subject of the
soul’s administration and operation; it is like the dirt, the mire and the
dregs, which have been removed from the action of the nature – or it is like
the hair, and the nails, and the skin of the hoof, which does not belong to the
essence of the nature and serves the outer and accidental purposes, and their
ruling (property) is like the ruling (property) of the house, which the man
builds for his existence, or rather for the escape from the cold, and the heat,
and other things – and without which (the house) the life in this world is
impossible; and the life of the human being does not flow and stream in his
house.
The great ones have not said in vain

(That) the body of the pure ones is nothing else but (their)
pure soul. ⁴

Hence, the real body is the one, in which the light of
sensation and life streams essentially, not accidentally, its relation to the
soul being that of the light to the sun. The state of the soul in its
(different) levels of separation is like the state of the outer perceived thing,
when it becomes perceived by the sense, then imagined and intelligible
(perceived noetically), i.e., its low and deficient existence changes to a
higher and more perfect one. Hence, the separation of the human soul and its
transmission from this world to the hereafter consists in the change of its
first modality to the second one. When the soul receives perfection and becomes
the actual intellect, all its faculties ascend and become perfect together with
the soul’s essence.
Sadra says that the active intellect has an existence of its
own and an existence in our souls. Hence, the perfection of the soul and the
completion of its existence, its form and its furthest limit consists in the
existence of the active intellect for the soul and in its unification and unity
with it (the soul), because the soul, although in the beginning it is the soul
in actuality and the intellect only in potentiality, through the conception of
the intelligibles and the comprehension of the secondary intelligibles, after
the primary ones, is capable of becoming the intellect in actuality, so that it
becomes able to present to itself the forms of the known things whenever it
wishes, i.e., it comes into possession of the acquired trait (malaka) of
calling forth (istihdār) the
intelligible forms without the hardship of obtaining ("earning") them
anew, and its essence passes from the (station of the) intellect in potentiality
to the (station of the) intellect in actuality. Every thing which from the
limits of the potentiality and preparedness comes into the limits of actuality,
cannot dispense with a thing which actualises it and brings it from potentiality
to actuality. Now, if this actualizer is not an intelligible thing – as this
is the case with the body or a corporeal faculty – it necessitates the lower
existent’s becoming a beneficient cause of a loftier and higher existent and
the non-intelligible’s giving the intellect to what is other than it, which is
absurd. Hence, the actualizer must inevitably be the intellect.
The proof (of this benefaction) is based on the fact that,
although the First One (may He be exalted!) is the Absolute Effuser and the True
Benefactor of the recipient of the existential effusion, every species among the
species of existents needs an intermediary which corresponds to this particular
species, among the separated forms and noetic substances; and they are God’s
angels which are drawn near to Him, (the angels,) whom the predecessors called
"the lords of the species" and the followers of Plato named them
"Platonic images" and "divine forms", since they are
differentiated knowledges of God, through whose mediation the outer things
emerge. There is no doubt that the most proper of these angels to solicit for
the perfection of the human souls is their holy father and noetic image which,
in the language of Muhammad’s explanation, is called "Gabriel"(Jibrā’īl)
and "the spirit of holiness" (rūh
al-qudus), while the Persians call him "the bestower of the
soul" (ravān-baksh).
In the writings of philosophers
and mystics, this angel (the active intellect, Gabriel and Ravān-baksh) is
symbolically called “Angā’” or “Sīmurgh”, and its develling-place
is said to be the mountain of Qāf. Its voice awakens those, who are
sleeping in the abode of darkness, and its call makes aware of (God’s)
signs the heedless and unaware, and its cry reaches the ears of those fallen
into the abyss of ignorance and lost in the desert of darkness (both of which
are situated in the world of the prime matter) – but those who hear this voice
and listen to this call by the ear of the soul are few in number, because most
of the individuals are deaf to hearing the call of the reality and heedless to
the signs of their Creator, and they turn away their faces from these signs. God
says: "They are deaf, and dumb, and blind, and they do not comprehend"
(2:166) ⁵. He is with all creatures but the creatures are not with him.
Thou art with us and thou art not with us.

Thou art the soul, that is why thou art not alone.
‘Attar says:
His name is Simurgh and "the Ruler of birds",
He is near to us but we are far from him. ⁶

Whoever understands his language, understands the language of
every bird and knows all realities and secrets. His nest is in the east while
not a particle in the west is empty of him; everyone is occupied with him while
he is occupied with none; all places are full of him while he is empty of the
place. All sciences and crafts were extracted from his voice, and the
pleasurable tunes, marvellous melodies, and amusing music and wonderful musical
instruments, and other things were deduced from the principle of the wings of
this bird, the possessor of the noble essence and the blessed name.

Thou hast not seen Solomon at night –
What couldst thou know of the language of birds?! ⁷

Whoever is under his protection, can enter the fire without
burning in it and can pass through the water without being drowned. Rather, the
perfection of all creatures with all the (different) kinds of their perfections,
and wayfarers’ satisfaction of their needs and necessities,
take place through the aid of this holy bird, ‘Attar says in the “Mantīq
al-tayr”:

In the beginning of the affair – o wonder! –

Simurgh made himself seen in China at midnight.
His feather dropped in the middle of China;
By necessity, every country was filled with tumult.
Every one "took"(copied) the pattern of the
feather;
Whoever saw the pattern, became agitated.
All these traces of artisanry (come) from his glory (farr);
All patterns come from the pattern of his feather.
Had the pattern of his feather not become manifest,
All this uproar would not have happened. ⁸

Notes
^{1- When we use the word
"tool" (ālat)
in the definition of the soul, we intend by this something like the nourishing,
vegetative and productive (procreative) faculties in the vegetal soul,
imagination, sensation and the faculty of yearning (shawq) in the animal
soul; not the stomach, liver, heart, brain and sinew. So the instrumental body (jism
ālī) is an alive body and possesses the
soul, and the soul, in turn, is the principle and the source of sensation and
voluntary motions, at the some time, it is the first perfection of the natural
instrumental body, which possesses life in potentiality.

2- Sadr
al-Din Shīrāzī, “Al-hikma al-muta‘āliyya
fī-l-asfār al-‘agliyya al-arba‘a”, ed. R.Lutfi et als, 3^rd
edition, Beirut: Dār Ihyā’ al-Turāth al-‘Arabī 1981,
part 8, p. 316-317.

^{3-
Jalāluddīn Rūmī, "The Mathnawi",
ed. by R.A.Nicholson, 2^nd edition, London: Luzae and Co 1971, vol. 5,
p. 184-185.

4- Farid
al-Dīn ‘Attār, “Dīwān”, ed. by T.Mufaddalī, 9^th
edition, Tehran: Enteshārāt-e ‘ilmī wa farhangī 1375 H.S.,
p.337.

^{5- “The
Holy Qur’ān”, translated by Abdullah Yusuf Ali,
London: Wordsworth Editions 2000, p.16.

6- Farid
al-Dīn ‘Attār, “Mantīq al-tayr”, Tehran: Amir Kabir 1972,
p.46.

^{7- Apart
from ‘Attār, the parable of Simurgh was employed by Shaykh al-Ishrāq,
who used it to illustrate the universal and all-encompassing
nature of the active intellect, as well as its inaccessibility by means of
logical reasoning, in his symbolic tale "The shrill cry of Simurgh" (Safīr-e
Sīmurgh). We have partially retold here the
introductory chapter of the tale.

8- The latest Persian
edition: Shihāb al-Dīn Suhrawardī, “Majmua‘ye mosannafat-e
Shaykh-e Ishrāq”, 3^rd
edition, vol.3, Tehran: Enteshārāt-e Moula 2001, p.204-227. The
English translation: Wheeler M.Thackston Jr. (transl.), “The Mystical and
Visionary Treatises of Shihabuddin Yahya Suhrawardī”, London: Octagon
Press 1982.

^{9- Farid
al-Dīn ‘Attār, “Mantīq al-tayr”, Tehran: Amir Kabir 1972,
p.67.

On "Causality and Freedom": Some Questions
Concerning the Sadrian View

Timothy Chambers

Abstract

In a recent issue of this Journal (Mar 2002), Mohsen
Araki limns and defends Mulla Sadra’s attempt to harmonize the claims that
(1) Every event has a cause, though (2) We often act freely. My Discussion
briefly recounts Araki’s Sadrian position, then gauges its Plausibility in
light of several scenarios. Along the way, I note points of the "free
will" debate in recent Anglo-American literature, and articulate how
the Western "free will"-debate is continuous with that of classic
scholars of Islam.

In "Causality and Freedom," Mohsen Araki presents a
lucid, fascinating, account of Mulla Sadra’s (1571-1640 AD) "theory of
necessity" ¹. Of particular interest is the Sadrian defense against charges
that his theory of causality is inimical to free will. Araki surveys Sadra’s
defense, and proclaims it triumphant; his "responses to …
objections", we’re told, "are sound" (p. 20). Araki closes his
essay by signaling grounds for a sequel-discussion; to wit, we can better divine
the Sadrian view’s strength through further study of "the mutual relation
of cause and effect" – though, understandably, such "[f]urther
explanation of this point needs a separate discussion" (p. 21).
In the present essay, I’d like to further motivate, and
focus, such a sequel-discussion by adducing questions engendered by Araki’s
existing account. To provide a backdrop for these questions, then, we first
recount Araki’s Sadrian theory’s main claims, as well as Araki’s replies
to a pair of anticipated objections. Along the way, I’ll also cite points
urged by prominent contributors to the Western tradition’s "free
will"-debate; my hope here is to illustrate the striking continuity between
Western, and Sadra’s, concerns about free will and causation.

I- The Theory of Necessity: Main Claims

(A) Sadras’ Main Claims. On Araki’s illuminating
view, Mulla Sadra’s theory of necessity encompasses a quartet of main claims.
A suitable background, then, should motivate, and recount, these four tenets.
(1) The Sadrian view claims that "every voluntary (free)
act" exhibits a tripartite structure: "(a) prerequisites of willing
the act; (b) willing the act; and (c) the act itself" (p. 10).
Respectively, then, a voluntary act unfolds by first "conceiving the act
and affirming its benefit" (p. 15). Then, having affirmed its benefit, and
wanting the act to occur, we then will the act – my will, that is to say,
exerts itself; this act of will, ceteris paribus, is then followed by my
body’s executing the act. Henceforth, we will refer to this generalization
concerning free acts’ common structure as the Voluntary Acts’ Thesis.
(2) Given the foregoing thesis, a natural question arises:
What relations relate these parts of a "free act"? The Sadrian view
commits itself to a pair of tenets – one commonly-agreed, the other a bit
contentious. The first tenet – which, Araki notes, is "usually
assumed" all around (pp. 10-11) – posits that the second event (an agent’s
willing an act) causally necessitates the third event (the act itself); for
"[t]o suppose [otherwise]…would contradict the free will and power of the
agent" (pp. 10-11). It’s worth noting, in passing, that the Western
tradition often concedes this tenet, too; "[a]n uncaused act", writes
philosopher John Hospers in an prominent, introductory, text,

did not issue from you, had no basis in you, and was
something for which you could bear no responsibility. Freedom presupposes
[such] determinism and is inconceivable without it. ²

But the Sadrian view goes further: not only does stage (b)
causally necessitate stage (c)’s occurrence, but, more ambitiously, Sadra
maintains that "the relation of iradah (will) to its prerequisites
is [also] a relation of [causal] necessity" (pp. 11-12). We refer to this
two-fold view, then, as the Dual Necessitation Thesis.
(3) Yet now a worry arises: if, as Dual Necessitation
requires, an agent’s act is one relatum of a necessary cause-effect relation,
how does this square with the characterization of such an act as voluntary? How,
that is, could a free act also be caused?
The Sadrian answer – that the concepts of "free
act" and "caused act", in fact, cohere – is found in what we’ll
dub the Compatibility Thesis. "[F]reedom", Araki posits,

consists in choosing out of consent and not under an
external force imposing an unpleasant choice…the main criterion for
voluntariness is not contingency [i.e., being unhinged from a necessary
cause-effect relation]; rather, it is the consent of the agent and lack of
an imposing external factor. (p. 13)

In other words, what makes an act "unfree" is not
its being caused, simpliciter; rather, the unfree act is one which involves
being caused by an "external" source. Such a view, it’s worth
noting, is reminiscent of literature familiar to the West. Thus, Aristotle
remarks:

What sorts of acts…should be called compulsory? We
answer that without qualification actions are so when the cause is in the
external circumstances and the agent contributes nothing. ³

(4) Now the Compatibility Thesis is an ambitious claim; so,
naturally, we must ask: What evidence favors this view?
In fact, the Sadrian view maintains that the evidence is
right before our eyes (ears). Specifically, support for the Compatibility Thesis
finds support in the (alleged) fact that our workaday talk about voluntary acts
unambiguously supports Compatibility; for, as Mulla Sadra, himself, observes:

The agent is voluntary and the act is issued from the
agent because of his will, knowledge, and consent. Such an agent is not
called by the public or by the elite [an] "involuntary agent".
Neither is the act said to be issued out of determinism, though it is
necessarily issued from the agent out of his will and knowledge. ⁴

We call this view – that workaday usage of such expressions
as "free" and "voluntary" is unambiguous, and is consistent
with the Compatibility Thesis – the Common Usage Thesis.
In passing, it’s worth noting that this last Sadrian tenet
also finds echoes in the Western literature. The prominent British philosopher,
G.E. Moore (1873-1958), for instance, supports his own view via appeal to
ordinary usage.

[T]he suggestion is that we often use the phrase ‘I
could’ simply and solely as a short way of saying, ‘I should, if I had
chosen’…. There are certainly good reasons for thinking that we very
often mean by ‘could’ merely ‘would if so and so had chosen’. And if
so, then we have a sense of the word ‘could’ in which the fact that we
often could have done what we did not do, is perfectly compatible with the
principle that everything has a cause.⁵

One small question arises here, by the way: Araki maintains
that the Sadrian view counts "free act" as meaning "act to which
an agent consents" or "act where no external factor forces an
unwelcome choice." Moore maintains, though, that "I could" means
"I would, if I had chosen." Are these two views – claims concerning
ordinary usage of "free act" and "I could" – compatible?
If so, how so? (Since more looming queries will soon press, we’ll let this
first question pass.)
(B) A Pair of Objections. In addition to setting forth
the Sadrian view, Araki presciently anticipates a pair of objections, and
applies the Sadrian rubric to turning them aside. Unsurprisingly, both of these
objections bear upon the contentious part of the Dual Necessitation Thesis.
(1) Dual Necessitation would have it that (a) our acts are
necessitated by the will; and the will, in turn, is necessitated by its
"prerequisites". Yet (b) we don’t feel that our will is compelled by
anything, nor do we feel compelled when our will engenders our acts. Yet doesn’t
the second premise militate against the first – and, by implication, the Dual
Necessitation thesis?
Against such an argument, we first note that premise (b)
tells against premise (a) only if we also presume that (c) our wills’ (and
consequent acts’) necessitation would suffice for our being (and feeling)
compelled to will (and act). Yet this last presumption is false. For by the
Compatibity Thesis, a compulsory (unfree) act consists in an external force’s
"imposing an unpleasant choice". If, then, our wills’ (or acts’)
necessitation flows from forces internal to us, then our wills’
internally-caused necessitation does not entail our being (nor feeling) unfreely
compelled to act. Contrary to the objection, then, the Dual Necessitation Thesis’
truth wouldn’t entail the patent falsehood that we would thus feel compelled
in our performance of voluntary acts. (pp. 19-20)
(2) If, as the Dual Necessitation Thesis would have it, (a)
all of our acts are relata of necessary cause-effect relations, then how is it
possible that (b) God justly holds us responsible for our acts? Doesn’t the
second premise tell against the first – and, by implication, against the Dual
Necessitation Thesis?
Again, the objection presumes an implicit premise: (c) that
we’re responsible for an act only if it (or the will engendering the act) is
not necessitated by anything. Yet as we’ve just seen, the Compatibility Thesis
entails that some (many) of our acts are necessitated by forces internal to us,
and are thus voluntary. Yet an act’s voluntariness suffices for our being
responsible for it. So the objection’s presumption, (c), is spurious; and the
objection goes by the board. (p. 20)

II- Causation and Free Will: Some Further Questions

(A) Motivation. As we’ve seen from the foregoing
objections, Sadra’s Dual Necessitation Thesis appears defensible (only?) by
appeal to the Compatibility Thesis. We’ve also seen, at (I.A.4), that the
Sadrian, in turn, rests the Compatibility Thesis upon the Common Usage thesis
– i.e., the claim that our ordinary speech concerning autonomous acts coheres
with the Compatibility Thesis’ definition of "free". Suppose, then,
that further scrutiny of our workaday linguistic habits were to reveal speech at
odds with Compatibility. Then this would appear to tell against the Common Usage
support Sadra adduces for Compatibility. By implication this would tell against
Araki’s defense of the Dual Necessitation thesis – premised, as it seems,
upon Compatibility’s truth.
Yet it seems, indeed, that ordinary speech admits of more
ambiguity than the Common Usage thesis allows. We exhibit these further
considerations presently, then offer some concluding remarks and queries.
(B) Counterexamples to the Common Usage Thesis. Our
counterexamples to Araki’s framing of the Sadrian definition – that an act,
recall, exemplifies "freedom" just in case that act "consists in
choosing out of consent and not under an external force imposing an unpleasant
choice" (p. 13) – are of three sorts. We offer examples that purport to
show that the definition is too broad, an example showing the definition is too
narrow, and, lastly, an indirect argument against the claim that ordinary usage
of "free" unambiguously coheres with the Dual Necessitation thesis.
(1) Too Broad. We begin by conceiving of acts which,
intuitively, the workaday speaker would balk at calling unqualifiedly
"free" – yet which, by Araki’s definition, count as
"free".

(a) To borrow from British philosopher John Locke,
suppose a man enters a room to attend a party⁶. Unbeknownst to him, the door
to the room locks as he enters. Yet, since the fellow finds the party so
enjoyable, the thought of leaving never enters his mind – and so, he never
learns that he couldn’t leave even if he’d wanted to.
Does the fellow freely remain at the party? According to
Araki’s definition, the answer would appear to be "yes"; for
neither does the man remain at the party against his consent, nor does the
locked door engender any "unpleasant choice" on his part – the
man never learns of the locked door, after all. Yet there seems something
intuitively implausible about calling the man’s choice "free".
(Better to call the blissfully imprisoned man "fortunate",
perhaps, rather than "free".)⁷ For subjunctively, if the man had
wanted to leave, he wouldn’t have been able to – a fact which militates,
as a matter of ordinary usage, against the claim that the man could
"freely leave" the party. But if the fellow couldn’t
"freely leave" the party, is it not intuitively strange to say
that the man "freely remained" at the party? (In ordinary usage,
it certainly seems that one is "free" to do X only if one is
"free" to do not-X, no?)
(b) In the foregoing example, our partygoer never learns
of the external circumstances barring his departure. Suppose now that the
locus of involuntariness, instead, were to be his mind’s internal workings
– the "precursors of his will". Specifically, consider a man
who, upon entering a party, is offered, and imbibes, a glass of orange
juice. Now, unbeknownst to the man, the orange juice is laced with a
psychotropic agent – one which engenders an intense desire to remain at
the party, no matter how boring the party might become.
Does the man freely remain at the party? Again, Araki’s
definition appears to say "yes" – for where there’s consent
(i.e., the man does as he desires), then the act is free. And, by
hypothesis, the man certainly wants to remain at the party. Yet if it’s a
drug which is responsible for the man’s "sham consent", one may
very well balk at pronouncing the fellow’s behaviour "free", no?

(2) Too narrow. There are also cases in which we would be
tempted to call a person’s actions "free" which fail to satisfy
Araki’s Sadrian definition. Suppose, for instance, a man incurs significant
debts, and finds himself enticed into accepting an illicit bribe (so as to
relieve his debt-ridden estate). Now the man’s conscience bucks at accepting
the bribe – he wishes that the "external factor" of his debt didn’t
"force such an unpleasant choice" upon him. Yet in virtue of being
so-"forced" by an "external factor", Araki’s definition
would seem to deny that the man freely takes the bribe. And yet, intuitively, we
would have no problem holding such a fellow responsible for his taking the bribe
– a judgment which, it seems, redounds against maintaining (as the definition
appears to) that the man acted "involuntarily" or "unfreely".
(3) An Indirect Argument. The last challenging example
derives from Oxford philosopher J.L. Austin (1911-1960). To begin with, it seems
that (a) it’s right to count a person as capable of "acting freely"
only if that person "can" perform the act in question. Moreover, the
Sadrian view maintains that (b) a person’s capacity to "act freely"
is consistent with the claim that "every event is necessitated by some
cause". Yet "[c]onsider", Austin notes, "the case where I
miss a very short putt and kick myself because I could have holed it."

[I]f I tried my hardest…and missed, surely there must
have been something that caused be to fail, that made me unable to succeed?
So that I could not have holed it. Well, a modern belief in science, in
there being an explanation of everything, may make us assent to this
argument. But such a belief is not in line with the traditional beliefs
enshrined in the word can: according to them, a human ability or power or
capacity is inherently liable not to produce success, on occasion, and that
for no reason (or are bad luck and bad form sometimes reasons?). ⁸

This observation, if apt, would appear to put pressure upon
our opening pair of claims; for Austin (renowned for his ear for ordinary
locutions’ conceptual contours ⁹ ) alleges that it’s false that ordinary usage
coheres with the claim that (c) if a person "can" perform a given act,
and fails in an attempt to perform it, then there must be a cause – a reason
– that that person failed. Yet claim (b) maintains that there must be a cause
– a reason – that necessitated his failure. So our ordinary usage of
"can" is inconsistent with the claim that "every event has a
cause". Yet if, as premise (a) alleges, our ordinary usage of
"free" entails that one is able to "freely act" only if they
"can" perform that act, then our ordinary usage of "free",
too, is inconsistent with the tenet that "every event has a cause".
But this is to say that the Sadrian Common Usage thesis is false.

Concluding Remarks

So we’ve recounted a Sadrian view of freedom and causation,
and found some prima facie challenges. Specifically, our discussion
engenders the following queries.
(Q1) By the Common Usage thesis, the evidence for the
Compatibility Thesis is to be found in ordinary talk about autonomous actions.
Yet how can the Common Usage thesis stand, in the face of such examples revealed
at section (II.B)? (Is it possible, perhaps, that Sadra’s seventeenth-century
Arabic expressions bearing upon autonomy translate only inexactly into such
latter-day English expressions as "free", "autonomous", and
"voluntary"?)
(Q2) Araki captures the notion of a "free act" by
appeal to a definition which speaks of "external forces". One natural
question to ask, upon encountering this locution is, simply, "Well, ‘external’
to what?" (If the example at (II.B.1.b) is sound, it’s worth noting, then
our answer shouldn’t be, "external to the agent’s body"; for by
that example, there are "involuntary" acts which involve forces
internal to the agent’s body – and psyche, for that matter.)
(Q3) Too, if the examples at (II.B) hold good, and tell
against the Common Usage Thesis, then we must now wonder: if ordinary language
fails to unequivocally vindicate the Compatibility Thesis, might we find a
different species of evidence in favor of that thesis?
(Q4) Araki’s defense of the Dual Necessitation Thesis
involves appeals to the Compatibility Thesis. But it’s worth wondering: could
Dual Necessitation be defended against the pair of objections (marshaled at
section (I.B)) independently of the Compatibility Thesis? i.e., is the truth of
the Compatibility Thesis essential for defending the truth of Dual
Necessitation?
One particularly intriguing corollary of Araki’s fine
treatment – as our occasional citations of Western scholars illustrate – is
that the classical "free will"-debate, among scholars of Islam, seems
isomorphic to the debate found in the West.¹⁰ I therefore can’t help but think,
then, that our respective traditions’ schools would do quite well to combine
their resources. Perhaps the "free will"-conundrum, which has sorely
perplexed our schools separately, may yet yield some ground were our schools’
talents united. In any case, the alliance would surely prove illuminating.

Notes:
^{1-
Mohsen Araki, "Causality and Freedom", Transcendent Philosophy no.
1, vol. 3 (March 2002): pp. 1-22. Henceforth, citations of Araki’s article
will be parenthesized in the main text.

2- John Hospers, An Introduction to Philosophical Analysis,
4^th Edition (1953: Prentice-Hall, Upper Saddle River, NJ, 1997), p.
155. Hospers’ last sentence alludes to a contemporary locus classicus
of causal necessitation’s role in conceptualizing free will – viz., R.E.
Hobart’s "Free-Will as Involving Determinism and Inconceivable without
It", Mind vol. 43 (1934): pp. 1-27.
3- Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, Book III, ch. 1, pp.
1110a35-1110b4, in Richard McKeon, ed. and trans., Introduction to Aristotle
(Modern Library: New York, NY, 1947), p. 349.
^{4- Mulla Sadra, Al-Asfar al-Aqliyyah al-Arbi’ah,
vol. 2, pp. 229-30, quoted in Araki, pp. 13-14 (emphases mine).
^{5- G.E. Moore, Ethics (1912; Oxford University
Press, London, 1952), p. 131.
6- John Locke, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding
(1689), Bk. II, ch. 21, para. 10.
7- Cf. William L. Rowe, Philosophy of Religion: An
Introduction, Third Edition (1978; Wadsworth: Belmont, CA, 2001), pp.
148-149.
^{8- J.L. Austin, "Ifs and Cans" in his Philosophical
Papers (Clarendon Press: Oxford, 1962). Austin’s aside, on whether luck
can constitute a "reason for failing", tantalizingly invites further
inquiry. For a brief essay treating this elusive concept, see Nicholas Rescher,
"The Ways of Luck", in his Profitable Speculations (Rowman
& Littlefield: New York, 1997), ch. 11, and his more comprehensive volume, Luck
(Farrar Straus Giroux, New York, 1995).
9- See, e.g., Austin’s well-known tour de force,
"A Plea For Excuses", Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society,
New Series vol. 57 (1956-57).
10- For a contemporary anthology of Anglo-American efforts,
see Gary Watson, ed., Free Will (Oxford University Press: London, 1982).}}}

The Hermeneutical Reflections of Heidegger

Ahmad Vaezi

Abstract

Although hermeneutical philosophy or philosophical
hermeneutics is extremely indebted to Hans Gadamer, its fundamental elements are
rooted in Heidegger’s analysis of the ontological structure of Dasein. In this
essay the author discusses the hermeneutical dimensions of Heidegger’s
philosophy, namely, his view of human understanding, the hermeneutical circle,
the pre-structure of understanding, historicality of Dasein and so on. The
article ends with brief criticism and some considerations.

Introduction

Before the appearance of Martin Heidegger’s book, Being
and Time (first German edition: 1927), hermeneutics was a discipline or a
technique. Originally hermeneutics as the logic of understanding a text,
provided readers some rules for overcoming the ambiguities of the classical
texts. Although Schleiermacher opened new horizons into the traditional method
and theory of interpretation of texts, and Wilhelm Dilthey extended the realm of
hermeneutics and raised it to a methodology of all human sciences, the radical
turn in hermeneutics was finally made by Martin Heidegger.
Heidegger, in Being and Time, elevates hermeneutics
from methodology and epistemology - the art and logic of understanding texts
and, in Dilthey’s approach, seeking the theoretical foundations of human
sciences - to a philosophical level. He strives to show the unity of
hermeneutics with phenomenology and true philosophy. From his point of view,
philosophy is a universal phenomenological ontology and hermeneutics is nothing
but phenomenology.¹
Heidegger never engaged with the traditional problems of
hermeneutics. Nevertheless, he established a new perspective in hermeneutics.
His hermeneutical insights were followed by some thinkers. Perhaps no twentieth
century philosopher has done more on behalf of this new approach to hermeneutics
than Hans Gadamer. With the publication of his famous book, Truth and Method
(first German edition: 1960), he exalted the dignity of hermeneutics as
philosophy. Gadamer’s attitude to hermeneutics, like his teacher Heidegger’s,
is philosophical rather than epistemological or methodological. He says:

The hermeneutics that I characterize as philosophic is
not introduced as a new procedure of interpretation or explication.
Basically it only describes what always happens wherever an interpretation
is convincing and successful.²

As I will note, the hermeneutical insights in Being and
Time were an implicit part of Heidegger’s main philosophical projection.
His debates about human understanding and the pre-structure and historicality of
our knowledge is derivative in comparison with his major philosophical aims.
However, Hans Gadamer concentrates on what has been called ‘philosophical
hermeneutics’. The hermeneutics of Gadamer makes ‘understanding’ the
object of philosophical reflection. Therefore, it keeps aloof from the tradition
of hermeneutics.

The hermeneutics developed here is not, therefore, a
methodology of the human sciences, but an attempt to understand what the
human sciences truly are and what connects them with the totality of our
experience of world. If we make understanding the object of our reflection,
the aim is not an art or technique of understanding, such as traditional
literary and theological Hermeneutics sought to be. ³

Gadamer’s philosophical hermeneutics is significantly
influenced by the phenomenological reflections of Heidegger on human
understanding. Even though, thanks to Gadamer’s efforts, philosophical
hermeneutics has been elevated as a focal point in modern philosophy and
critical discussions in different fields of knowledge, the basic elements of it
are the legacy of Heidegger, so that we can claim that Gadamer’s major book, Truth
and Method, explains, develops and makes more exhaustive Heidegger’s
heritage in the ontology of human understanding.
The central point addressed by this essay is the
clarification of Heidegger’s share in philosophical hermeneutics. I will
concentrate on his original hermeneutical insights, which were the fundamental
starting point for subsequent philosophers such as Gadamer for improving
hermeneutic philosophy. Since Heidegger’s hermeneutical discussions are part
of his large philosophical projection, first of all I will briefly examine his
philosophical aim.

Philosophy as phenomenology of Dasein

In the introduction to Being and Time Heidegger
criticizes the tradition of western philosophy from Plato until now. According
to his view, they ignored ‘Being’ as the true subject matter of philosophy.
He wanted to open up a productive way for ontological-transcendental philosophy.
Heidegger insisted that true philosophical reflections must concentrate on
understanding the meaning of ‘Being’. He emphasizes that ‘Being’ is not
an abstract conception and also is not a being among other beings, rather it is
‘Being’ of entities.⁴
How should we understand the meaning of Being? The
traditional and ordinary methods such as rational inference are not useful
because these methods are applied for understanding beings, while Being is not a
being. The phenomenology of Edmond Husserl provided Heidegger with the way that
he was seeking. Husserl, unlike Kant, maintained that our major categories -
including existence - are not the products of our intellect and subjective
creations of human consciousness, rather, we understand them by intuition. They
are given to us by experience.⁵
Heidegger was inspired by the phenomenology of Husserl and
maintains that ‘Being’ is not a universal and self evident conception,
rather, as a phenomenon, it is presented and opened to us. Therefore, our
philosophical duty is only to find the specific way for disclosureness and
uncovering of ‘Being’.
Heidegger believed that the phenomenology of the human being
- Dasein ⁶ - and the analysis of his ontological structure is the unique
way for understanding the meaning of Being. Even though Being manifests itself
in all beings, Dasein is a being that in its existence, being is a
problem ⁷. Dasein is distinguished from other beings for it is seeking the
meaning of Being, and the answer to the most important philosophical question:
‘what is the meaning of Being?’ - is one of its possibilities ⁸. Dasein
is explicit for Being and discloses it in a non-comparative degree with other
beings.
In summary, the ontological analysis of Dasein or
phenomenology of Dasein is a primordial step for the fundamental ontology
that was the ultimate philosophical aim of Heidegger: the understanding of
Being. In his view this philosophical, phenomenological task – the ontological
analysis of Dasein - is also hermeneutical, because, the Greek verb hermeneuin
means making some thing understandable and the phenomenology of Dasein
provides us with the primordial ontological elements for transcendental
ontology. Accordingly, the hermeneutical task is to employ a phenomenological
analysis of Dasein in order to make ‘Being’ understandable.⁹
Although Heidegger said, in a broader sense, that all
phenomenological analysis of Dasein is hermeneutical, obviously only some
of these analytical achievements have connection to hermeneutics as a
specialised field of knowledge. In the last century, two philosophical currents
were influenced by Being and Time: existentialism and hermeneutics. Both
of them relied on the ontological structure of Dasein in different ways.
Philosophers like Hans Gadamer concentrated on the Heideggerian analysis of
understanding and the specific aspect of Dasein’s structure which both
have an ontological relationship with understanding and interpretation. In
continuation, I will discuss the major hermeneutical points of Heidegger’s
thought which have been noted by his followers and opponents in hermeneutics.

Heidegger’s Theory of Truth

Heidegger’s idea of truth not only refutes the classical
theory of truth but also his view does not have any connection to the other
versions of prepositional truth. Both the classical theory of correspondence and
modern theories of truth such as ‘coherence’ and ‘pragmatistic’ theory
of truth are propositional, because, they commonly believe that truth and
falsity are qualities that are attributed to prepositions. In other words our
knowledge is capable of truth or falsities. According to the classical theory,
the definition of truth is correspondence of the form of knowledge –propositional
- with the reality which it describes, whereas the coherence theory believes
that truth is nothing but systematic coherence between propositions and this
kind of coherence is different from logical coherence. A proposition is true if
and only if it is a necessary part of a coherent and systematic whole.
Pragmatist thinkers, even though they insist on cash value as a criterion of
truth, also attribute truth to propositions.
Heidegger, especially in Section 44 of Being and Time,
discusses truth. His ideas which he describes are clearly not in line with our
normal and current understanding of truth. Heidegger denied and refused the
propositional truth that, according to his view, was first brought to the fore
by Plato and Aristotle. He insisted that truth must be understood as ‘uncovering’
and ‘unconcealing’. Accordingly, truth is an attribute of a phenomenon
itself. The concept of truth extends to all that can be uncovered and to any
disclosure. Therefore, the concept of truth contributes to things themselves.
The proposition and assertion is true when it points out or discloses the entity
and its state of affairs. It is a mode of truth.
Heidegger characterizes ‘truth’ as pointing out and
uncovering, so, truth must be understood in terms of self-manifestation and
givenness. He appeals to the Greek word aletheia to mean truth. Letheia
means ‘hidden’ or ‘concealed’ and a- is a negative preposition.
Therefore, aletheia means ‘manifestation’, or ‘unconcealing’.
According to this new definition of truth, Dasein is
truth because its reveals, or discloses, itself. In Being and Time, he
tries to explain that the ‘disclosedness’ of Dasein is the first and
the most original phenomenon of truth, because the uncovering of Dasein
is a primordial step for disclosure of the truth of being. Whereas Dasein is
a "being-there", so that man and his world can never be separated, the
disclosedness of Dasein means ‘un-concealment’ - disclosure - of his
world. Heidegger’s theory of truth in some aspects is similar to Husserl’s
phenomenological idea of truth which he explained in his sixth logical
investigation.

Understanding and its Pre-structure

Man as "subject" has different possible behaviors,
and understanding is one of these. Philosophical discussion about understanding
usually occurs in a non-ontological mode. It is presumed to be just one of a
human being’s acts. For instance, the main philosophical question of Kant was
"what are the conditions of our knowledge, by virtue of which modern
science is possible and how far does it extend?" Heidegger opened up a new
perspective in philosophical reflection on human understanding. He emphasized
the ontological aspect of understanding. According to his view, understanding is
essentially part of the ontological structure of Dasein, therefore,
phenomenological analysis of understanding and its ontological conditions is the
subject of philosophical hermeneutics. As Hans Gadamer points out, Heidegger’s
temporal analysis of Dasein has shown that understanding is not just one
of the various possible behaviors of the subject but the mode of being of Dasein
itself.¹⁰
Heidegger writes:

If we infer understanding as a fundamental existential,
this indicates that this phenomenon is conceived as a basic mode of Dasein’s
being. ¹¹

Philosophical hermeneutics after Heidegger concentrates on
the ontological aspect of understanding, so the task of this field of
hermeneutics is ontological rather than methodological, and therefore Heidegger
clearly established the basic elements of the new approach to hermeneutics. One
of the most important results of Heidegger’s phenomenology of understanding is
the three fold pre-structure of understanding. He maintained that every kind of
understanding is preceded by a pre-structure. Some famous theologians and
philosophers followed and improved this hermeneutical insight, for example
Rodulf Bultmann insisted on the role of "pre-understanding" in the
process of the interpretation of texts and Hans Gadamer rehabilitated
"prejudice" as a necessary condition of understanding.¹²
For Heidegger, Dasein is primarily ‘being-possible’,
the kind of being which Dasein has, is potentially-for-being. Possibility
as an existential is the most primordial and ultimately positive way in which Dasein
is characterized ontologically. Possibility signifies what is not yet actual and
what is not necessary. Its being possible is transparent; there are possible
ways and degrees. On the other hand Dasein is ‘being-there’, that is,
Dasein is ‘being-in-the-world’. Dasein is that entity which,
as ‘being-in-the-world’, is an issue in itself. Both of these aspects of Dasein
– ‘being-possible’ and ‘being-there’ - have a close relationship to
understanding. For the kind of being which Dasein has, as
potentiality-for-being, lies existentially in understanding and also Dasein
only in understanding, is its ‘there’. Heidegger says:

Understanding is the essential being of Dasein’s
own potentiality-for-being, and it is so in such a way that this being
discloses in itself of what its being is capable.¹³

Understanding as a disclosure always pertains to the whole
basic state of ‘being-in-the-world’. Through understanding, Dasein
knows what it is capable of, that is, what its potentiality for being is capable
of. As Heidegger emphasizes this, knowing belongs to being of the
"there", that means Dasein’s understanding has in itself the
existential structure which Heidegger calls "projection". Any Dasein
has, as Dasein, already projected itself. Projection always pertains to
the full disclosure of ‘being-in-the-world’.¹⁴

Dasein has been thrown into its world. Ontologically Dasein
is never free from its thrownness, so the understanding of Dasein occurs
in the scope of its world. Dasein}}}}}}}