Volume 1. Number 2. September 2000
Transcendent Philosophy
An International Journal for Comparative Philosophy and Mysticism
Articles
John. L. Bell
Continuity and the Logic of PerceptionCaner K. Dagli
Mulla Sadra's Epistemology and the Philosophy of PhysicsDavid C. Dakake
Faith and Perception in Mullâ Sadrâ’s Doctrine of the Sirât: Proofs of IslamicityHamid Hadji Haidar
Democracy: As Seen in the Political Philosophy of Imám KhumayníBilal Kuspinar
Perception: A Way to Perfection in SadraJoseph Lumbard
The Place of Prophecy in Mulla Sadra’s Philosophy of PerceptionLatimah-Parvin Peerwani
Mullâ Sadrâ on Imaginative Perception and Imaginal WorldSeyed G. Safavi
Mullâ Sadrâ and PerceptionAlparslan Açıkgenç
Philosophical Perception and Mystical Vision in Sadra within the Whiteheadean Context
Continuity and the Logic of Perception
J. L. Bell, The University of Western Ontario, CanadaAbstract
In his On What is Continuous of 1914, 1 Franz Brentano makes the following observation:
If we imagine a chess-board with alternate blue and red squares, then this is something in which the individual red and blue areas allow themselves to be distinguished from each other in juxtaposition, and something similar holds also if we imagine each of the squares divided into four smaller squares also alternating between these two colours. If, however, we were to continue with such divisions until we had exceeded the boundary of noticeability for the individual small squares which result, then it would no longer be possible to apprehend the individual red and blue areas in their respective positions. But would we then see nothing at all? Not in the least; rather we would see the whole chessboard as violet, i.e. apprehend it as something that participates simultaneously in red and blue.In this paper I will describe a simple and natural framework—a logic of perception—in which this "simultaneous participation" or superposition of perceived attributes is accorded a major role. (This framework was originally introduced in for a different purpose.) The central concept of the framework is that of an attribute being manifested over a region or part of a proximity space—an abstract structure embodying key features of perceptual fields. An important property of the manifestation relation is non-persistence, namely, the fact that a space may manifest an attribute not manifested by some part. This will be shown to be closely related to the idea of superposing attributes. I will also show how this framework is tied up with the continuity of perceptual fields.
Let us think of attributes or qualities such as "blackness", "hardness", etc. as being manifested over or supported by parts of a (perceptual) space. For instance if the space is my total sensory field, part of it manifests blackness and part manifests hardness and, e.g., a blackboard manifests both attributes. Each attribute A is correlated with a proposition (more precisely, a propositional function) of the form "— manifests the attribute A."
I shall use letters A, B, C to denote attributes. I assume given a supply of atomic or primitive attributes, i.e., attributes not decomposable into simpler ones. For each such attribute A and each space S we may consider the total part of S which manifests A; this will be called the A-part of S and denoted by [A]S. Thus, for instance, if S is my visual field and A is the attribute "redness", then [A]S is the total part of my sensory field where I see redness: the red part of my visual field.
Attributes may be combined by means of the logical operators Ů (and), Ú (and/or), Ř (not) to form compound or molecular attributes. The term "attribute" will accordingly be extended to include compound attributes. It follows that (symbols for) attributes may be regarded as the statements of a propositional language L—the language of attributes.
In order to be able to correlate parts of any given space S with compound attributes, i.e., to be able to define the A-part of S for arbitrary compound A, we need to assume the presence of operations [Ů ], [Ú ], [Ř ], corresponding respectively to Ů , Ú , Ř , on the parts of S. For then we will be able to define the A-part [A]S for arbitrary attributes A according to the following scheme:
[A Ů B]S = [A]S [Ů ] [B]S[A Ú B]S = [A]S [Ú ] [B]S (*)
[Ř A]S = [Ř ][A]S.
Once this is done, we can then define the basic relation [Í ]S of inclusion between attributes over S:
A [Í ]S B Ű [A]S Í [B]S
where, as usual, "Í " denotes the relation of set-theoretic inclusion.
Now the conventional meaning of "Ů " dictates that, for any attributes A and B, we should have A Ů B [Í ]S A and A Ů B [Í ]S B and, for any C, if C [Í ]S A and C [Í ]S B then C [Í ]S A Ů B. In other words, [A Ů B]S should be taken to be the largest part (w.r.t. Í ) of S included in both [A]S and [B]S. By the first equation in (*) above, the same must be true of [A]S [Ů ] [B]S. Consequently, for any parts U, V of S, U [Ů ] V should be the largest part of S included in both U and V.Similarly, now using the conventional meaning of "Ú ", we find that, for any parts U, V of S, U [Ú ]V should be the smallest part of S which includes both U and V.
We shall suppose that there is a vacuous attribute ^ for which [^ ]S = Ć , the empty part of S. In that case, for any attribute A, we have
[A]S [Ů ] [Ř ][A]S = [A]S [Ů ] [Ř A]S = [A Ů Ř A]S = [^ ]S = Ć ,
Consequently, for any part U of S we should require that U [Ů ] [Ř ]U = Ć , i.e. that U and [Ř ]U be mutually exclusive.
It follows from these considerations that we should take the parts of a perceptual space S to constitute a lattice of subsets of (the underlying set of) S, on which is defined an operation [Ř ] (‘complementation’) corresponding to negation or exclusion satisfying the condition of mutual exclusiveness mentioned above. Formally, a lattice of subsets of a set S is a family L of subsets of S containing Ć and S such that for any U, V Î L there are elements U [Ů ] V, U [Ú ] V of L such that U [Ů ]V is the largest (w.r.t. Í ) element of L included in both U and V and U [Ú ]V is the smallest (w.r.t. Í ) element of L which includes both U and V. U [Ů ]V, U [Ú ] V are called the meet and join, respectively, of U and V. A lattice L of subsets of S equipped with an operation [Ř ]: L ® L satisfying U [Ů ] [Ř ]U = Ć for all U Î L is called a [Ř ]-lattice of subsets of S.
We can now formally define a perceptual space, or simply a space, to be a pair S = (S, L) consisting of a set S and a [Ř ]-lattice of L of subsets of S. Elements of L are called parts of S, and L is called the lattice of parts of S.
The perceptual spaces that most closely resemble actual perceptual fields are called proximity spaces. These in turn are derived from proximity structures. A proximity structure is a set S equipped with a proximity relation, that is, a symmetric reflexive binary relation » . Here we think of S as a field of perception, its points as locations in it, and the relation » as representing indiscernibility of locations, so that x » y means that x and y are "too close" to one another to be perceptually distinguished. (Caution: » is not generally transitive!) For each x Î S we define the sensum at x, Qx , by
Qx = {yÎ S: x » y}.
We may think of the sensum Qx as representing the minimum perceptibilium at the location x. Unions of families of sensa are called parts of S. Parts of S correspond to perceptibly identifiable subregions of S. It can be shown that the family Part(S) of parts of S forms a [Ř ]-lattice of subsets of S (actually, a complete ortholattice) in which the join operation is set-theoretic union, the meet of two parts of S is the union of all sensa included in their set-theoretical intersection, and, for U Î Part(S),[Ř ]U = {yÎ S: $ xĎ U. x » y}.
The pair S = (S, Part(S)) is called a proximity space.
The most natural proximity structures (and proximity spaces) are derived from metrics. Any metric d on a set S and any nonnegative real number e determines a proximity relation » given by x » y Ű d(x, y) Ł e . When e = 0 the associated proximity relation is the identity relation =: the corresponding proximity space is then called discrete. It can be shown that, if a proximity space S has a transitive proximity relation, then it is almost discrete in the sense that its lattice of parts is isomorphic to the lattice of parts of a discrete space.Given a perceptual space S = (S, L) we define an interpretation of the language L of attributes to be an assignment, to each primitive attribute A, of a part [A]S of S. Then we can extend the assignment of parts of S to all attributes as in (*) above. Given an attribute A and a part U of S, we think of the relation U Í [A]S as meaning that U is covered by the attribute A. Now there is another relation between parts and attributes the manifestation relation MS—which reflects more closely the way compound attributes are built up from primitive ones. U MS A, which is read "U manifests A" or "A is manifested over U" is defined as follows:
U MS A Ű U Í [A]S for primitive A,
U MS A Ů B Ű U MS A and U MS B,
U MS A Ú B Ű V MS A & W MS B for some parts V, W of S such that U = V Č W,
U MS Ř A Ű (for all parts V of S, V MS A Ţ V Í [Ř ]U).
Thus U manifests a disjunction A Ú B provided there is a "covering" of U by two "subparts" manifesting A and B respectively, and U manifests a negation Ř A provided any part of S manifesting A is included in the "complement" of U.
In general, the manifestation and covering relations fail to coincide in proximity spaces. The reason for this is that, while the latter has a certain persistence property, the former, in general, fails to possess this property. By persistence of the covering relation is meant the evident fact that if a part U of a space is covered by an attribute, then this attribute continues to cover any subpart of U. However, as we shall see, this is not the case for the manifestation relation: there are attributes manifested over a part of a space which fail to be manifested over a subpart.
Let us call an attribute S-persistent (or persistent over S) if for all parts U, V of S we have
V Í U & U MS A Ţ V MS A.
(Note that a primitive attribute is always persistent. More generally, it is not hard to show that the same is true for any compound attribute not containing occurrences of the disjunction symbol Ú .) Let us call a space S persistent if every attribute is S-persistent (for any interpretation of L in S). We now give an example of a non-persistent proximity space, a one-dimensional version of Brentano’s chessboard.
Red Blue Red Blue Red Blue Red Blue
4 –3 –2 –1 0 1 2 3 4
U
Consider the real line with the proximity relation » defined by x » y Ű * x – y* Ł 2, and let R be the associated proximity space. The sensum at a point x is then the closed interval of length 1 centred on x. Suppose now we are given two primitive attributes B (‘blue’) and R (‘red’). Let the B-part of R be the union of all closed intervals of the form [2n, 2n + 1] and let the R-part of R be the union of all closed intervals of the form [2n – 1, 2n]. To put it more vividly, we "colour" successive unit segments alternately blue and red. Clearly, then, R manifests the disjunction R Ú B. But if U is the sensum Q1 = [2, 12], then R Ú B is not manifested over U, since U is evidently not covered by two subparts over which R and B are manifested, respectively—indeed U has no proper subparts.Thus arises the curious phenomenon that, although we can tell, by surveying a (sufficiently large part of) the whole space R, that the part U is covered by redness and blueness, nevertheless U—unlike R—does not split into a red part and a blue part. In some sense redness and blueness are conjoined or superposed in U: it seems natural then to say that U manifests a superposition of these attributes rather than a disjunction. If we take the unit of length on the real line sufficiently small (or equivalently, redefine x » y to mean * x – y* Ł e for sufficiently small e ) so that each interval of unit length represents the minimum length discernible to human visual perception, we have (essentially) Brentano’s chessboard in one dimension. In that case, the "superposition" of the two attributes blue and red turns out to be violet, which is what we actually see.
Actually, the covering of our proximity space by parts like U looks like this:
red blue blue red red blue blue red red bluewhile Brentano’s chessboard looks like this:
red blue red blue red blue red blue red blueBut the two arrangements are obviously isomorphic.
The concept of superposition of attributes admits a very simple rigorous formulation. In the example we have just considered, the part U manifests a superposition of the attributes R and B just when there is a part V of the space which includes U and manifests R Ú B (in this case, V may be taken to be the whole real line). This prompts the following definition. Given a proximity space S, an interpretation of L in S and attributes A, B, we say that a part U of S manifests a superposition of A and B if there is a part V of S such that U Í V and V MS A Ú B. Now for any attribute C, it is readily shown thatU MS Ř Ř C. Ű V MS C for some part V such that U Í V.
So the condition that U manifest a superposition of A and B is just
U MS Ř Ř (A Ú B).
It follows that a superposition is a double negation of a disjunction. In the human visual field, then, the attribute "violet" is the double negation of the attribute "blue or red". Similarly, the attribute "grey" is the double negation of the attribute "black or white", etc.
Finally, we discuss the relationship between these ideas and continuity. Let us call a proximity structure (S, » ) continuous if for any x, y Î S there exist z1, …, zn such that x » z1, z1 » z2, …, zn-1 » zn , zn » y. Continuity in this sense means that any two points can be joined by a finite sequence of points, each of which is indistinguishable from its immediate predecessor. (Thus, in the case of our non-persistent proximity space above, continuity means that a red segment and a blue segment can always be joined by a violet line provided that the coloured segments are taken to be sufficiently small.) If d is a metric on S such that the metric space (S, d) is connected, then every proximity structure determined by d is continuous. When S is a perceptual field such as that of vision, the fact that it does not fall into separate parts means that it is connected as a metric space with the inherent metric. Accordingly every proximity structure on S determined by that metric is continuous. Note that this continuity emerges even when S is itself an assemblage of discrete "points". This would seem to be the way in which continuity of perception is engendered by an essentially discrete system of receptors.
Notes:
1- Brentano, Franz, Philosophical Investigations of Space, Time and the Continuum. Barry Smith, translator. London: Croom Helm, 1988.2-Bell, J.L., A New Approach to Quantum Logic. British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, 37, 1986.
Mulla Sadra's Epistemology and the Philosophy of Physics
Caner K. Dagli, The George Washington University, USA
Abstract
In response to the philosophical speculation that has accompanied the empirical findings of twentieth century physics, the contemporary philosopher and mathematician Wolfgang Smith has introduced a distinction between what he calls the corporeal and physical worlds, the former being that which is accessible to us through our own senses and the latter being that which is accessible to us through the modus operandi of physics, and which most notably contains the entirety of what has come to be known as the ‘quantum world’. Smith’s conception is based in traditional metaphysics, and seeks to destroy once and for all the stranglehold that Cartesian dualism has had over Western thought until the present day.
This distinction between the corporeal and physical world is examined in light of Mulla Sadra’s theory of perception, and similarly Sadra’s philosophy is evaluated in light of the distinction that Smith makes between the world of sense perception and the world accessible through measurement. Of particular importance is the role of the intermediate or imaginal world as a key to understanding both what Sadra has to say about perception as well as Smith’s own radical and philosophically powerful approach to deciphering such phenomena as non-locality and the so-called state vector collapse. The possibility of incorporating Smith’s views about physics into the Sadrian world-view is considered.
There is a fundamental difference between our common experience of the world and our encounter with that same world as seen through the lenses of scientific observation. For example, when one sees a red billiard ball, he sees a spherical red object. After subjecting this object to various sorts of measurement and observation, he is able to form a picture of its quantitative attributes. He is thus able to say that this thing is a rigid sphere with such and such a radius, of a certain density, possessing a determinable mass. The difference between these two billiard balls is that the first is directly perceptible by us, while the second is only accessible to us through the methods of scientific observation. In his book The Quantum Enigma, the mathematician and philosopher Wolfgang Smith discusses, among other things, our perception of objects (such as the billiard ball), and seeks to prove the error of Cartesian bifurcation1, which considers objects in the world to only possess quantitative measurable attributes, the qualities we associate with these objects being relegated to our own subjective world, or to the status of "secondary qualities". Using Smith's critique of the Cartesian dualism as a starting point, this paper will be a brief discussion of this realm of quantity as seen in the light of Mulla Sadra's theory of perception.
* * *
The ball we perceive is what Smith calls the corporeal object, for which there exists a corresponding physical object. According to this terminology, the corporeal world is the world of perceived qualities, while the physical world is that of measured or measurable quantities. When we learn that the ball has a certain mass, we do not perceive this directly (although this too can be perceived in a certain qualitative manner) but do so by reading a corporeal pointer on a corporeal scale. We are able to perceive this reading, not by virtue of any quantitative attribute, but because, for example, the pointer and the numbers on the scale are black on a white background. All these are the qualities of the objects in question. It is thus pointless to speak of the primacy of measurable quantities, since we have no access to the results of our measurements without the perceivable qualities. To paraphrase Smith, no one, not even a scientist, has ever seen a rigid sphere of homogeneous density with radius x, and no one ever will. Ours is the world of the red ball, regardless of the measurements made on it by modern science. The corporeal world is the only door to the physical, and if one wishes to have any knowledge whatsoever of physical attributes, it must be accepted that we actually perceive the qualities of things, and that a real connection is made between the subject and the object. This explanation completely overturns the primacy of extension and refocuses our attention on quality, and in one stroke takes the self-proclaimed monopoly on knowledge of things "as they are" away from the scientist.
In Mulla Sadra's theory of perception2, when man looks out upon the world, what he perceives falls into two categories: forms (suwar) and meanings (ma‘ani). The faculty that perceives forms is the sensus communis (al-hiss al-mushtarak), which functions to gather together the information brought in by the five external senses. Through this faculty we are able to perceive whole images or whole impressions. The forms perceived through the sensus communis are preserved in the imagination (al-khayal), also called the form-making-faculty (al-musawwirah).
As for meanings (ma'ani), they are perceived by the faculty of apprehension (al-wahm). The apprehension perceives meanings that are not the immediate content of sense perception. Sadra gives the example of the enmity a sheep perceives in a wolf, or the love one person perceives in another. For their part, these meanings are stored in the memory (al-hifz).
The faculty-of-disposal (al-mutasarrifah) is that power in man that takes apart and combines the forms and meanings it finds in the imagination and the memory. By virtue of this faculty one can inwardly put wings on a horse, or see the horse without its tail. "When the soul makes use of this faculty through the intermediation of the faculty of apprehension, it is called the imaginal-faculty (al-mutakhayyilah), and when it uses it through the intermediation of the intellectual-faculty it is called the faculty-of-thought (al-mufakkirah)."3 For Sadra, the faculty of apprehension is none other than "the essence of the intellectual-faculty being put into relation with a particular individual, its connection to him, and its governance for him. The intellectual-faculty connected to the imagination (al-khayal) is apprehension, just as its objects are the universal meanings put into relation with the forms of individual entities of the imagination."4 The apprehension by definition deals with meanings in particular things, while the intellectual-faculty (al-‘aqilah) deals with meanings as such.5 As we shall see, the role of the faculty-of-disposal, which is polarized into the imaginal-faculty and the faculty-of-thought, must be made clear if one is to have a meaningful understanding of the practice of science.
* * *
We have already explained that the human observer, in conducting his scientific investigation, has access only to the corporeal world of qualities, the physical world being available to him only by virtue of its effects in the former. This act of perception itself is, in Sadrian epistemology, the domain of the five external senses and the sensus communis. When one speaks of perceptible qualities and measurable quantities in light of the distinction between the corporeal and the physical, one is saying in effect that sense perception (al-hiss) has access only to the former and not to the latter. It is through this act of sense perception that the human observer has any access whatsoever to the external world, to the world of the objects that he studies.
In order to understand how the human observer finds the physical attributes of an object, it is necessary to look to the faculty of apprehension. As we have noted before, according to Sadra the apprehension is that faculty in man which is able to perceive meaning in the forms it is presented with by the sensus communis or by the imagination. Enmity and love are not qualities that subsist in corporeal bodies qua corporeal bodies, but they nevertheless can be perceived in them and associated with them through the faculty of apprehension.
When one looks at our red billiard ball, one sees that it is spherical in shape. It is not, however, a sphere in the strictest sense, as it is not possible, by the very nature of the corporeal world, for a perfect sphere to be present within it. When we draw a triangle on paper, we are in reality not drawing a perfect triangle, no matter how fine our line or how precise our measurement of its angles. The line will always have some width, and upon inspection we find that this line is hardly smooth and regular. What we have drawn is a triangular shape, and yet we say that we in fact perceive a triangle, just as we can see a sphere in the billiard ball. In both cases, the perception of the geometric form is not a function of the faculty of sense, but rather of the faculty of apprehension. The sphere and the triangle belong to the domain of meanings, not of sensorially perceptible forms. This same principle holds true for any geometric shape in any corporeal object we observe. We perceive squares, cones, lines, and points in corporeal bodies by virtue of the presence of these forms in the intellect, which, when put into relation with an individual, becomes his faculty of apprehension.
Moving beyond merely the shapes of things, let us suppose that we throw this billiard ball in order to observe the effect. Repeating this act many times with multiple billiard balls, we find that the shapes of all the trajectories accord with the same type of mathematical formula. Standing at the proper vantage point, an observer can directly perceive the parabolic arc the billiard ball follows each time it is thrown. The parabola is perceived through the faulty of apprehension; one sees it in the corporeal world, but it is not a corporeal entity. Sadra mentions the similar example of a falling drop appearing as a line to an observer, which he uses as a proof for the existence of the sensus communis. The point he is trying to prove is that the faculty of sight as such only perceives a drop, and that the ability to see the falling drop as a whole is a function of the sensus communis. This must not be misconstrued as meaning that it is through the sensus communis that we perceive a line, that is, a perfect geometric line. It is the faculty of apprehension that perceives this meaning in the trajectory of the falling drop. This same reasoning holds for the parabolic arc traced out by the ball, although it is at a slightly higher level of mathematical complexity. Of course many more mathematical "meanings" can be derived from our study of the flying billiard balls, but regardless of the type of experiment we choose to perform, in each case we will discern a certain content within the corporeally perceived objects which is indicative of a mathematical idea, which is none other than the faculty of apprehension perceiving meanings in the sensorial forms it has access to through sense perception and through its storehouse, the imagination. It should be noted the ability to derive mathematical formalism from our inspection of the world and to derive still further mathematical meaning from our existing knowledge of mathematics is the domain, not of the apprehension, but of the faculty-of-thought, which as we know is the faculty-of-disposal coupled with the intellectual-faculty. It is by virtue of its being like "an intellect that has fallen from its elevation"6 that the apprehension perceives these universal mathematical ideas in the particular objects of the world.
The situation becomes more complicated when we begin to deal with physical entities that do not have any corporeal counterpart. That is to say, a rigid sphere of homogeneous density occupies the same part of space and time that we associate with the red billiard ball. Even if no one happens to perceive it at some given moment, nevertheless the corporeal counterpart to the physical ball can always be perceived under suitable conditions. The case is different for the entities studied in modern physics: the electron, the photon, fields, and every object with which quantum physics is concerned are physical objects that have no corporeal counterpart at all. No matter what the conditions, the electron is an entity that is never perceptible by any human observer; it is something one only has access to through the modus operandi of physics.
For Smith, this presents no special difficulty, since both the rigid sphere of homogenous density and the electron both belong to the physical world. In fact, all of the objects of the physical world are nothing but aggregates of the sub-microscopic entities dealt with in quantum physics. The crucial point to be remembered, however, is that the corporeal object is not an aggregate of particles. The corporeal object is the object of our perception; it is only the physical counterpart that can properly be viewed as an aggregate of protons, neutrons, electrons, etc.…
Now, it might appear on the face of it that in bringing to light the distinction between the corporeal and physical worlds in this way we have solved the problem of Cartesian bifurcation only to create another problem, namely that there now appear to be two objects that occupy the same region of space-time, each possessing qualities totally incommensurate with the other, yet somehow linked through our acts of perception. This almost sounds like a displaced bifurcation, but such is not at all the case, as shall become clear through considering what the physical world, from the perspective of the human observer, really amounts to.
Scientists rely on models when dealing with data that are not directly perceptible, or when observing the large-scale behavior of perceptible objects. Constructing a model necessarily entails giving some sort of form to quantitative data. There is, for example, the electron-cloud model of the atom, which is not a picture of an atom but rather a tool used to organize data involving the set of quantitative observations to which one assigns the name "atom", a tool which is not purely mathematical but involves the use of images from our world of perception (in this case a cloud) in order to clothe these mathematical meanings with form.
Let us come back to the example of a sphere. It is impossible for us to picture or imagine a sphere in our minds in the absence of certain accidents, what Sadra refers to in this context as hay'at, meaning "frames" or "forms". Try as we may, at the level of the imagination and apprehension we cannot picture a sphere without the aid, inwardly, of some sensible form drawn from the storehouse of our imagination. Indeed, we can perceive the intelligible sphericalness in this image we fashion, but that is not the same thing as that particular sphere itself, which falls short of the level of intelligibility precisely because it is one spherical object and not another; that it only possesses mental existence does not make it any less of a particular.7 When we imagine the trajectory of the thrown ball, apart from the ball itself and its surroundings, we never imagine a parabola as such. At best, we imagine something like a thin black line on a white background, but then we have already gone beyond the level of pure meaning and have coupled it with accidents.
Let us consider the case of light. As a physically measurable entity, light can be viewed as a wave, not because it is perceived as such, but because upon measurement it displays wave-like characteristics. When we say wave-like we mean that it resembles, in some basic way, the behavior of a perceptible, corporeal thing we call "wave". However, light can also be viewed as being composed of particles, again not because it is perceived as particles but because upon measurement it displays particle-like characteristics, those of corporeal particles. Taken together these two points of view represent the well-known wave/particle duality of quantum physics, which is not limited to light, and which will serve well to illustrate the undervalued role of the imaginal faculty in the practice of physics.
When a physical entity corresponds easily to a sensible object, this process of "reifying" a mathematical meaning presents no great problem, as the corporeal counterparts are clearly in view. The case of light "waves" or light "particles" is very different. The mathematical meaning called a light wave has no corporeal referent, or perhaps it would be more accurate to say that there is no corporeal object whose corresponding physical object strictly speaking is a light wave or a light particle (a photon).
Physicists cannot, therefore, upon pain of absurdity, refer to photons as particles in the same way they refer to sand grains as particles. In the first case the scientist clothes a set of mathematical formulas with the form of a particle, which he draws from his imagination. This "particle" has the same ontological status as the black parabolic arc on a white background in our imagination; that is to say, it has no concrete external existence. Now, the sand grain is a particle that does possess external existence, and it is by virtue of the sand grain and other objects that rightfully bear the name "particle" that the scientist is able to go into his imagination and draw out an image that seems to fit best with his data. The fact that photons are not truly particles is brought out by the fact that light does not always behave like a stream of particles, but sometimes as a wave. When a physicist calls light a "wave", he goes through the same process, drawing upon his imagination to clothe his mathematics with form. The truth of the matter is that from the very start light was never a particle nor a wave. Seen in this way, the paradox of the so-called wave-particle duality disappears, because we have never really left the world of mathematics.8
This process of fashioning imaginal models out of mathematical data is a legitimate and necessary practice of science. The problem is one of philosophy, not of scientific method. Only in a perspective where qualities are deemed secondary to the practice of "real" science can one lose sight of the fact that it is the corporeal world that possesses primacy, acting as our door to the physical, and moreover providing us with the raw material -- consisting of the images such as "particle" and "wave" -- that enables us to work more easily with the mathematical formalism we derive from our observation of the corporeal world.
* * *
By way of conclusion, it is necessary to point out that although the strictly mechanistic conception of the universe has been proven false beyond a shadow of a doubt by the discoveries of physics over the course of the last century, the prevailing scientific world-view, which has been almost completely adopted by the public at large, teaches that physicists are currently engaged in a pursuit to find the "fundamental building blocks of matter". Using the term such as "building blocks" is problematic enough, as we have seen, but what of matter? The very notion of matter as this is understood in the modern context is part and parcel of the bifurcationist world-view, which sees a world of pure extension "out there", which is somehow made of this elusive entity. The truth, however, is that no one really knows what matter refers to in the context of modern science. It denotes no measurable quantity, and is really nothing more than a symbol of the reign of quantity under which the modern world lives; "matter" is a philosophical question, not a scientific one.
Sadra tells us that we can only ever know form, and here we refer not to form as opposed to meaning but to form as opposed to matter; it is that by which a thing is what it is.9 The "matter" (al-maddah) of Sadrian metaphysics and indeed of pre-modern philosophy in the West is not the undefined "matter" spoken of in modern science; it is pure potential actualized through form. We only know the forms of things, never their matter. In this sense one can say that mathematics also consists of form, but form uncoupled from matter. For a hundred years all physicists have been doing is discovering mathematical form and structure; the search for matter can only be in vain, since for the scientist the only escape from the ocean of mathematical form beyond his direct perception is the dry land of our corporeal world, which consists, not of matter, but of forms belonging to the realm of quality.
Thus, at this level of reality, the corporeal world is the world of forms, but this does not mean that the physical world is the world of matter. When we say physical realm we are really talking about mathematical form in the corporeal world. The quantitative attributes of the physical realm are nothing more than the mathematical description of the behavior of corporeal objects. Thus our physical billiard ball, that so-called aggregate of particles, is nothing more than the sum-total of mathematical entities, arrived at much the same way one adds algebraic formulas together to arrive at a more inclusive formula.10
This metaphysical perspective puts man back at the center of his own world of perception, the only world, one might say from Sadra's perspective, that God meant for him to live in and experience. It takes nothing away from the mathematics of physics but the confused ontology that has come to be associated with it. Instead, this mathematics is viewed as a description of the laws eternally present in the Divine Intellect which govern the corporeal realm. It becomes clear that one does not have to be a physicist to have a meaningful understanding of what the physicist does. Physicist and layman alike live in a world that is never reducible to numbers, a world that is impossible to leave except through the practice of bad philosophy.
Notes:
1-Smith, Wolfgang, The Quantum Enigma, Peru, Illinois 1995. See also his Cosmos and Transcendence, chps. 1-2,as well as "Bell’s Theorem and the Perennial Ontology," Sophia, summer 1997, pp. 19-38, and "The Extrapolated Universe," Sophia (forthcoming). For a critical look at his work, see S. H. Nasr, "Perennial Ontology and Quantum Mechanics: A review essay of The Quantum Enigma," Sophia (Summer 1997) pp. 135-157.2-This paper deals mainly with the inward faculties of perception, or al-madarik al-batiniyyah. See Mulla Sadra, al-Shawahid al-rububiyyah fi‘l-manahij al-sulukiyyah (Mashhad 1981) pp. 193-195, al-Mabda‘ wa’l-ma‘ad (Tehran, 1976) pp. 242-252, al-Hikmat al-muta‘aliyah fi’l-asfar al-‘aqliyyat al-arba‘ah (Beirut 1981) v. 8. pp. 205-220. See also J.W. Morris, The Wisdom of the Throne (Princeton 1981) pp. 136-137, and F. Rahman, The Philosophy of Mulla Sadra (Albany, New York 1975) pp. 221-229
3-Al-Mabda’ wa’l-ma‘ad, p 249 4-Asfar, v. 8 pp. 216-2175-see Asfar, v. 8, pp 216-218
6-see next note
7-In a section entitled "On the Kinds of Perception", which clarifies this point and others, Sadra writes, "Know that there are four kinds of perception: sense perception, imagination, apprehension, and intellection. Sense perception is the perception of a thing existent in matter that is present with the perceived thing as frames (hay’at) particular to it (i.e. the perceived thing) and sensible with it, namely place, time, position, quality, quantity, and so forth. As regards some of these qualities, this thing is not separate form their like in external wujud, and no other thing shares them with it . . . That by which sense perception takes place and that which is essentially sensible and essentially present in the perceived thing is the form (surah) of that thing, not itself . . . It is necessary that what is realized in the sense be its form uncoupled (mutajarradah) from its matter, yet sense perception does not uncouple this form completely. Imagination, too, is the perception of this thing with the aforementioned 'frames', because the imagination does not imagine except that which it senses . . . Apprehension is the perception of a non-sensible meaning -- indeed intelligible -- which it however does not conceive universally, but in relation to a particular sensible, and for this reason no other thing shares it, owing to the fact that it is related to an individual thing. Intellection is the perception of a thing with respect to its quiddity and its logical definition, not with respect to any other thing, irrespective of whether this thing is considered by itself or with some other perceived quality . . .
There must needs be uncoupling in any perception; these perceptions are ranked in their uncouplement. The first has three conditions: the presence of matter to the organ of perception, the enclosement of the 'frames', and the perceived object's being particular. The second (imagination) is free of the first condition, while the third (apprehension) is free of the first two. The fourth (intellection) is free of them all.
Know that the difference between perception through apprehension and that through intelleciton is not essential but is something external to it, and which consists in relating to it a particular and its non-existence. In reality perception is of three kinds, just as the worlds are three. It is as though apprehension is an intellect that has fallen from its elevation." Asfar, v.3 pp 360-3628-This is far from being the only apparent paradox in physics. The problems raised by the uncertainty principle and Bell's Theorem, the latter which suggests simultaneous connections over great physical distances, are among them. For an introduction to modern physics as well as discussions of the philosophical implications of these discoveries, see The Quantum Enigma, pp 115-136, D. Bohm and B. Hiley, The Undivided Universe: An Ontological Interpretation of Quantum Theory (London 1993); G. Zukav, The Dancing Wu Li Masters, (Quill Marrow 1979); S. Hawking, A Brief History of Time (New York 1988); D. Mermin, "Is the Moon there When Nobody Looks? Reality and Quantum Theory," and A. Shimony "Metaphysical Problems in the Foundations of Quantum Mechanics," in The Philosophy of Science, Boyd, Gaspar, and Trout eds (Cambridge, MA 1991)
9-For an example of Sadra's discussion regarding the perception of form, see Asfar, v. 3 pp 300-321, and also Risalat ittihad al-‘aql wa’l-ma‘qul in The Complete Philosophical Treatises of Mulla Sadra (Tehran 1999) esp. pp 75-76, and The Philosophy of Mulla Sadra, pp 221-225
10-"[T]he notion of macrosystem . . . belongs to the practical or pragmatic realm; it has to do with degrees of approximation and the feasibility of certain simplified models. In reality, however, every physical object constitutes a microsystem - by virtue of the fact that it is composed of atoms and fundamental particles. The microworld, thus, so far from constituting a subdomain, coincides actually with the physical universe in its totality . . .
It follows . . .that the so-called large-scale objects of physics are in reality just as strange as the electron or quark . . ." The Quantum Enigma, pp. 47-48
Faith and Perception in Mullâ Sadrâ’s Doctrine of the Sirât: Proofs of Islamicity
David C. Dakake, Temple University, USA
Abstract
The notion that "Islamic philosophy" is not really Islamic but is rather Greek philosophy written in Arabic has remained prevalent in Western scholarship to this day. This determination, however, is often arrived at without much examination of the later tradition of Muslim philosophers, particularly those associated with the "School of Isfahān.” Furthermore, most of the study of the teachings of this School has tended to focus on broad issues of metaphysics, ontology, cosmology, etc. Little has been written on elements of religious praxis that clearly demonstrate the Islamic character of this later philosophical tradition. It is our intention in this paper to make a contribution to this process of determining the Islamicity of later Muslim philosophy by focusing on Mullâ Sadrâ’s understanding of the Qur’anic doctrine of the sirât and how one can practically move across it in the next life. Sadrâ provides us with discussions of this issue in the Asfār, al-Tafsīr al-Kabīr and al-Hikmah al-`Arshiyyah, where drawing upon the Qur’an and the teachings of the Shi`ite Imams, he offers a glimpse of what we might say is Sadrâ’s practical spiritual advice for disciples traveling the path to God. In these texts he relates how a soul’s very ability to stand upon the sirât in the next life is determined by its obedience to the laws of Islam and the Imams. Yet, this obedience, while essential, does not necessarily allow one to progress along the sirât, only to gain a certain foothold. To move forward requires the ability to view the length and breadth of the sirât that is afforded only by the presence of the lights of true faith and mystical vision. In this way the practice of the exoteric religion and the vision afforded by faith are linked in the doctrine of the sirât providing proof of the truly Islamic character of spiritual wayfaring in the philosophy of Mullâ Sadrâ.
The study of philosophy is often understood as a mental pursuit. This attitude is especially prevalent from the Renaissance onward -- within the context of Western philosophy -- as the pursuit of "wisdom" (that is, "sophos") became more and more detached from the issue of active "virtue" (that is, "philo" or "love", which was the original Pythagorean concomitant of all true wisdom). Philosophy, in other words, became gradually "desacralized" and detached from questions of virtue.
This general trend within the history of Western philosophy is not what occurred within the history of Islamic philosophy. Within Islam, one sees a tendency in the opposite direction. In other words, the earliest works of philosophical import in Islamic culture are more "Greek" in nature, not that they ignore issues of virtue or religion, of course, but the virtues of which they speak -- as, for instance, in the case of al-Fârâbî’s al-Madîna al-Fâdila -- are really the virtues of Greece, primarily the virtues of social organization. Furthermore, T. Izutzu has remarked that, contrary to what is generally thought, Islamic philosophy did not actually end in the 12th century with the death of Ibn Rushd. Rather, this event signaled the true beginnings of an "Islamic philosophy," i.e. -- a philosophy oriented around Qur’ânic or Islamic virtues,1 what H. Corbin has called a "prophetic philosophy" in Islam.2 This view is often passed over silence by many scholars, such as M. Fakhry in his A History of Islamic Philosophy (Columbia University Press, 1983), if not outright opposed by others, such as D. Gutas in his work, Avicenna and the Aristotelian Tradition (E.J. Brill, 1988). In our opinion, perhaps the most important manifestation of a truly "Islamic philosophy" is found in the writings of Sadr al-Dîn al-Shîrâzî (d. 1640), known as Mullâ Sadrâ. Sadrâ’s philosophical compositions combine theory and "praxis," that is, metaphysics and virtue, and this virtue is an Islamic virtue -- not Greek -- based upon the notion of the sirât al-mustaqîm, following the straight path.
Perhaps the principal doctrine within this philosophy of Mullâ Sadrâ is the doctrine of substantial motion (al-haraka al-jawhariyya). In this doctrine, Sadrâ asserts a teaching which he says is not new, but was mentioned by some of the pre-Socratic philosophers. The doctrine pertains to the essential or innate motion of all that exists below the level of the archetypal realities (i.e., the Platonic forms or al-a`yân al-thâbita). By virtue of this principle, Mullâ Sadrâ says all of existence is in constant motion by its very nature, without the need of an impetus bestowed from the "spheres" of the heavens. Through this innate motion all things in the world "become", that is, their being or wujűd is continually intensified or de-intensified, and this substantial motion is the very motion or flow of being through the heavenly archetypes. From Sadrâ’s perspective, the distinctions which we find between things or people in terms of attributes or qualities, such as intelligence or beauty, are all the result of varying degrees and intensities of being, brought about by substantial motion. Therefore, one could say that not only are some people, for instance, more intelligent than others or more physically fit than other, but some people simply "are" more than others due to the intensity of the motion of wujűd within them.
Of course, the quest of the philosopher is for truth, at least traditionally, and within the philosophy of Mullâ Sadrâ, "being", "reality" and truth ultimately correspond. The question then arises of how one attains to the true or the real. How does one intensify the substantial motion of one’s being, that it may resonate with the truth? The answer to this is through the virtues, the Islamic virtues, and specifically, the virtues of the Prophet of Islam and the Shi`ite Imams. Mullâ Sadrâ draws heavily on the Qur’ân and hadith to describe this "path" of the intensification of one’s being, and in so doing, combines his metaphysics with an Islamic praxis which is not seen to the same degree in the earlier Islamic philosophy of al-Kindî, al-Fârâbî and Ibn Sînâ. This paper proposes to delineate this human, practical side of Mullâ Sadrâ’s doctrine, and thus to provide clear proofs of the essential Islamic nature of the teachings of one of the major figures or the history of later "Arabic" philosophy. We hope to show that far from being just Greek ideas re-configured in Arabic, later Islamic philosophy developed, at least in the case of Mullâ Sadrâ, a philosophical language, based upon Islam, which sacralized philosophical discourse through the attainment of the virtues of the sirât al-mustaqîm.
We should begin with a further examination of the issue of substantial motion. Mullâ Sadrâ relates this substantial motion to God’s "existentiating command." For Mullâ Sadrâ substantial motion is the flow of being (wujűd)inherent in the command to exist given by the Creator, by which all things come to persist in their various states, both in this world as well as the world to come. This divine command is immutable and unavoidable so far as creatures are concerned. All "beings" must respond to it, and the command itself corresponds to the Qur’ânic verse XVI: 40, "Kun fa yakűn," (When Allah says, ""Be’ and it is"). This command is technically known as al-hukm al-takwînî (existentiating judgment) in the philosophical vocabulary of Mullâ Sadrâ.3 Yet within this motion of being there is another motion. In addition to the existentiating command based upon substantial motion, there is also a second command given by God. This is al-hukm al-tadwînî (recorded judgment),4 and it corresponds, in the case of Islam, to the Book of God and the Sunna, i.e. -- to following the prescriptions and prohibitions laid down in revelation. This command, unlike the "existentiating judgment" which is universal for all things that have existence, only relates to those creatures that have free will, i.e. -- humans,5 and although it too calls for obedience, obedience to it is not ontologically required of it, due to the freedom given to each man’s will such that he may obey or disobey this judgment. Yet Mullâ Sadrâ is clear in stating that this "recorded judgment" has a great impact upon the substantial motion of men and the divine "existentiating judgment" depending upon their faith in and willingness to adhere to its injunctions.
It is here within a discussion of "proper action", what we can call virtue or praxis, that we may begin to see the manner in which Mullâ Sadrâ most clearly departs in his philosophical enterprise from Greek thought. Therefore, we will now attempt to determine where the elements of Islamic praxis, which we alluded to in our introduction to this essay, enter into the ultimate goal of Sadrâ’s philosophy. Let us first examine some basic Greek ideas on such practical matters that we may contrast them with Mullâ Sadrâ’s thought in order to demonstrate the truly Islamic nature of his philosophy.
For the major Greek philosophers (and we will refer only to Pythagorus, Plato and Aristotle) philosophy and proper action or virtue were deeply related, if not synonymous. There was for them no philosophy without proper action, and specifically no philosophy without the habits of moderation, order and reasoned living. We can see this clearly in the "Golden Verses" of Pythagorus, where he outlines the principles which must inform the daily life of his disciples. These principles require, in addition to the performance of the ritual honoring of the gods --giving heaven its just due, all kinds of forms of moderation and temperance, or we might say "order," in the various aspects of daily life and ones relations with others. Plato as well demonstrates similar concerns in The Republic, chapter XIV, where he discusses the need to maintain, within the individual, a proper harmony between the faculty of reason, the "spirited elements" of man’s nature and the bodily appetites, where the habit of a life determined and balanced by reason "... sets [ones] house in order... bringing into tune those three parts like the terms in the proportion of a musical scale."6 Aristotle also emphasizes the importance of a life "moderately furnished" and "lived temperately,"7 so as to create that balanced state of affairs which is most conducive to that which is best in man, i.e. -- the practice of reasoned contemplation. For each of these philosophers, proper conduct or virtue is a kind of rational harmony which avoids extremes, and these notions constitute the essential elements of virtue and comportment for the practitioner of Greek philosophy in order to achieve what Aristotle, for instance, spoke of as udaiuovia or true happiness.
When we turn from Greek thought to Mullâ Sadrâ’s philosophy we do not see a simple reiteration of these virtues. No doubt, moderation and rationality are present in Sadrâ’s thought, yet the very definition of what is "moderation," for example, has been transformed by Sadrâ into a Qur’ânic Shari`ite context which also includes the teachings of the Shi`ite Imams. Furthermore, "rationality" has been dethroned from its place as that highest faculty in man and sine qua non through which he is able, as Aristotle says, to share in that "good state" that "God is always in,"8 and has been replaced by faith (îmân) and the light of gnosis (ma`rifa).
It is within Mullâ Sadrâ’s discussion of the phenomenon known as the sirât, that "path" or "bridge" which is said in the Qur’ân to lead to Paradise and span the pit of Hell, that his philosophy most clearly transcends the Greek virtues of moderation and reason. Just as with the Greeks there was no philosophy without virtue -- one might say, no theoretical science without a practical science that could generate the necessary elemental conditions for theoria -- so too with Mullâ Sadrâ philosophy depends upon a proper practical active formation which undergirds it, but now this formation is dîn al-islâm. In fact, the very reason why the issue of virtues is so emphasized specifically in Sadrâ’s discussion of the sirât is because, from the Islamic point of view, the journey of a soul along the sirât in the next life reveals, in a decisive manner, the ultimate quality or virtue of the life it has lived here in this world.
But the sirât is not only the path which souls traverse in the next life. It is also the very path of religion, as Sadrâ says, "The sirât is the form in which guidance is brought into being so long as you are in this world."9 The form of this guidance is also clearly Muslim. In order to show this, we must elaborate on the topic of motion or haraka alluded to earlier. We have said that there is both an existentiating judgment and a recorded judgment within the ontological make-up of the Sadrian cosmos. We also said that corresponding to the existentiating judgment of God is what is called substantial motion (haraka jawhariyya) which gives being to all things. But there is also, according to Sadrâ, another motion which corresponds to the recorded judgment of God, although this motion belongs to man’s will rather than to God’s will. This motion is called by many terms in Sadrâ’s philosophy, such as willful motion (haraka irâdiyya), accidental motion (haraka `aradiyya), as well as voluntary motion (haraka ikhtiyâriyya), and it is that impetus by which souls are able to return to God in a manner pleasing to Him. In speaking of this motion in the Asfâr Mullâ Sadrâ clearly identifies it with the practice of the religion of Islam. He says:
... it is an accidental (`aradiyya) motion according to a mode of soul in respect to religious impetus (bâ`ith dînî), and it [this motion] is walking upon the way of unity (tawhîd) and the way of the those who profess divine unity (muwahhidűn) among the prophets (anbiyâ’) and friends of God (awliyâ’) and those who follow (atbâ’) them. It is the intention in His saying, ‘Lead us along the straight path’ (sirât al-mustaqîm).
10Here Sadrâ, besides emphasizing the import of practicing the religion of Islam, speaks of this motion by which one does so as "accidental" motion. He does this in order to emphasize its ontological precariousness, i.e. -- it depends upon an accidental condition (man’s will to act properly or not, to act Islamicly or not) which like all accidents, in the technical sense of the term, may or may not exist.
In addition to these more general charges to tawhîd and following the prophets Mullâ Sadrâ also quotes frequently from the hadith of the Shi`ite Imams to clarify his positions on issues related to the sirât. In al-Hikma al-`arshiyya he cites the following ahâdîth walawiyya:
Abű `Abdallâh (the Shiite Imam Ja`far al-Sâdiq)--May peace be upon him!...said: "The Path [sirât] is the Way to true inner knowledge of God the Exalted. And there are two Paths, one in this world and one in the other world. As for the Path that is in this world, it is the Imam who must be obeyed: whoever truly knows him in this world and strictly follows his guidance will pass over that Path which is a bridge across Gehenna in the other world....
Likewise (the Imam Ja`far) is reported to have said, concerning God’s saying -- May He be exalted! -- Guide us on the Straight Path (1:6), that "It is the Commander of the Faithful [`Alî ibn Abî Tâlib] and true inner knowledge of him."
And (it is reported) from the Imams -- May peace be with them -- (that they said): "We are the Gateways to God, and we are the Straight Path".11
Sadrâ uses these and other ahâdîth in both al-Hikma al-`arshiyya and his tafsîr (within the discussion of Qur’ân I:6) to justify his position that "every soul is in some respect a ‘Path’ to the other world; just as in another respect it is what is traveling the Path."12 But what is important for the issue which concerns us is the fact that Mullâ Sadrâ feels the need to justify his views on the sirât vis-a-vis the teachings of the Imams themselves. At another point in the `Arshiyya, where he speaks of man’s ability to obtain true inner knowledge of the soul (ma`rifat al-nafs) -- that soul which as we have just mentioned constitutes both the "thing" traveling upon the sirât and the substance of the sirât itself -- he is even more categorical regarding the necessity to follow the guidance of the Imams,
For this knowledge (ma`rifa) can only be acquired through illumination from the Lamp-niche of Prophecy and through following the lights of Revelation and Prophethood and the lanterns of the Book and the traditions that have come down (to us) in the Path of our Imams, masters of guidance and infallibility....13
Thus there can be little doubt as to the general practical requirements that Mullâ Sadrâ demands from those who would follow his philosophy. His is a way following the guidance of the Islamic Sharî`a and the Imams, not Greece.
It is evident thus far that man’s total journey upon the sirât is based upon a voluntary motion determined by the intensity of his adherence to the religion of God and his obedience to the Imams. But Mullâ Sadrâ is even more specific than this in terms of the issue of that praxis or virtue by which, in the first place, we are able to come to even stand upon the sirât of the next world; for this sirât of the next world is a very precarious matter. Following Qur’ânic statements Mullâ Sadrâ says that the sirât, as it manifests itself in the after life, has two aspects: it is "sharper than a sword" and "thinner than a hair." Sadrâ says that related to these two aspects of the sirât are, respectively, the practical faculty and the speculative faculty within man. These faculties correspond, though not without important differences, to Aristotle’s division of the sciences into the practical and the theoretical. In the Asfâr, Sadrâ describes the practical faculty and the perfection of conduct associated with it in what seems to be a typically Platonic fashion. He says,
As for the practical faculty: In the regulation of the three powers, sensible, irascible and estimative...it [the practical faculty] obtains for the soul a state of moderation between extremes...[and] The absence of extremes, called justice, is the beginning of deliverance (khalâs) from Hell.
14This appears to be simply a reiteration of the Greek virtues of moderation and justice particularly as found in Plato’s Republic, however, this quotation must also be seen in relation to (1) Mullâ Sadrâ’s statements above concerning dîn al-islâm and (2) notions of moderation, temperance (hilm), balance (mîzân), justice (`adl), etc., already presented within the Qur’ân, Hadith and the Sharî`a in innumerable examples. There is no doubt that the style of language which Sadrâ uses here is Greek, however the spirit of what he says is hardly un-Islamic. This is made even more clear when we examine the last sentence of the quotation and how Mullâ Sadrâ sees this moderation or "absence of extremes" as being only a partial element in the successful journey of a soul along the sirât in the after life. As we shall see, this journey along the sirât requires, in addition to such moderation, the much more important elements of faith (îmân) and gnosis (ma`rifa).
Mullâ Sadrâ says in the quotation above that the "absence of extremes" is the "beginning of deliverance." By this he means, moderation of conduct only places one upon the sirât. For it is not to be taken for granted in the Qur’ânic descriptions of the sirât, which Sadrâ of course accepts, that every one who stands upon the sirât in the next world will remain on it to its paradisal end. The Qur’ân tells us that many fall from the sirât in the next life, and so reaching it does not guarantee successful travel upon it all the way to Paradise. Mullâ Sadrâ makes this clear by saying that the absence of extremes is only a "beginning of deliverance." An absence of extremes only allows us to "stand" upon the sirât, not necessarily to progress along it. The idea that moderation is only a beginning is confirmed in another comment from Sadrâ regarding the "Path of this world,"
The "Path of this world" is an expression for the attainment of psychic harmony and a habitual state of moderation, between excess and deficiency, in the practical intellects use of the (soul’s) appetitive, irascible, and estimative powers. (This is) so that one will be neither profligate not sluggish and indifferent, but continent and modest; neither rash and precipitate nor cowardly, but courageous; and neither sly nor foolishly simple, but prudent and wise....Now moderation between violent extremes (of these powers) is tantamount to their very absence from the soul. In this way the soul may become as though it had no trace of those psychic attributes deriving from connection (with the body) and no station in this world....Then the soul becomes like a mirror prepared (tasta`iddu) to receive the self-manifestation of the form of the Truly Real.
15Here again we see moderation in conduct portrayed as only a start, a preparation for true spiritual journeying, and again this conduct is defined as following the Sharî`a and obedience to the Imam. Thus, he continues,
And that [i.e. -- the state of preparedness brought about by moderation] can only be attained by following the religious Law (Sharî`a) and submitting (tâ`a) to the Imam who must be obeyed -- for this is what is meant by the "Path of this world" being the Imam.
16We should note that despite his praise for a soul preparing itself with the virtues of moderate character Mullâ Sadrâ still has not informed us definitively as to the trajectory of such a soul once it has left the earthly plane and arrived at the sirât of the next world; he has only told us (1) that such a soul is made ready to receive real truth, which it does not have as of yet, and (2) that that particular soul may not experience pangs of separation from earthly life brought about by its necessary passage out of this world into the next.
The reason why Mullâ Sadrâ has not yet spoken of the positive trajectory of a moderate/shari`ite soul in the next life is because that positive trajectory is dependent upon something more than just "moderation." It requires a special kind of guidance, but not a guidance which comes from performing proper acts and being obedient to commands. It requires a guidance which comes from within, from faith (îmân) and gnosis (ma`rifa), which Sadrâ says function as lights through the various eschatological states after a soul has reached the sirât in the next world. What should be clear thus far is that Sadrâ’s definition of virtuous moderation is not simply a Greek notion but is specifically determined by Islam, the Sharî`a and the Imams. What we will now attempt to show is that the place of this moderation within the total economy of Sadrâ’s philosophy is also determined by Islam, particularly by the Qur’ânic idea of the pre-eminence of faith above all good acts. Here we find Sadrâ making the classical distinction between those who are simply "Muslim" and those who are "Mu’min." Being obedient to laws and orders only brings one to the threshold of truth, only "prepares" one for it. To actually experience the truth, to journey to Paradise and have the vision of God, requires faith and inner knowledge, and these two are essential elements of the second faculty of man according to Mullâ Sadrâ, the speculative faculty, to which we shall now turn our attention.
The speculative faculty in Mullâ Sadrâ’s philosophy is that faculty which corresponds to the second of the two qualities of the sirât as mentioned in the Qur’ân, the quality of the sirât as being "thinner than a hair."17 This faculty is also the source of what Mullâ Sadrâ terms "precise insights" (al-anzâr al-daqîqa) which are "in [their] precision and subtlety thinner than a hair,"18 thus allowing those who possess them to actually travel upon the sirât despite its relative thinness. However, these insights must not be confused with the purely rational operations of mind extracting universals from particulars which is the means of knowing in the Aristotelian speculative sciences. Instead, such Sadrian insights combine elements of rational precision along with spiritual intuition and faith. Thus Sadrâ says,
The sirât has two aspects: one of them is thinner than a hair and the other is sharper than a sword. Deviation from the first aspect necessitates falling from the fitra, [as God said] "Verily, the ones who do not believe in the next world fall from the sirât [XXIII: 74]."
19In this quotation Sadrâ shows us a relationship between belief or faith and the "thinner than a hair" aspect of the sirât. It is faith which keeps one on the sirât, able to go forward. Therefore, with only proper acts of moderation and obedience to ones credit the ultimate trajectory of a soul actually inclines towards Hell. In fact, the most hopeful thing that can be said of such souls, from Sadrâ’s point of view, is that they cannot achieve true perfection. He alludes to this in speaking of the term `adâla which, in Sadrâ’s technical vocabulary, refers simply to moderation in the various aspects of practical wisdom. He says, "`Adâla is not true perfection, because that [i.e. -- true perfection] is limited to the light of knowledge and the strength of faith (îmân) and gnosis (ma`rifa)."20 However, at worst the fate of the ones who perform proper acts without faith is to fall from the sirât into Hell, as stated in Qur’ân XXIII: 74.
As for those who do posses faith, i.e. -- their speculative faculty is functioning (to whatever degree). They run the gamut from the prophets, to the sâdiqűn, to the `âbidűn, to the disgraced believers and all those in between.21 Mullâ Sadrâ says that each one of these groups has their "light" by which they are able to travel the sirât to the meeting with God: "the believers do not proceed to the meeting with God except by the power of their lights and insights."22 He also says that these lights are in proportion to the intensity of their faith and their certainty derived from ma`rifa. Thus he says, "the degrees of the blessed are dissimilar in the dissimilarity of the lights of their knowledge (ma`rifa) and power of their certainty and faith (îmân)."23 It is these lights which Sadrâ says illuminate the perceptions of the faithful. He notes that for some of the faithful the light which they possess is immense and for others much smaller,
...one of them is given a light like the great mountain.... [One] is given his light like a palm tree in his right hand...Until the last of them is a man given a light to the extent of his big toe. It shines on a moment and dies out, and when it shines in front of his foot he walks and when it extinguishes he remains standing.
24So without the light of faith and certitude the actual traveling along the sirât seems an impossibility, It cannot be done by the merits of proper conduct alone, lest one arrive at the sirât of the next world and have no light by which to perceive the way to proceed.
* * *
In conclusion, Mullâ Sadrâ’s entire discussion of the success or failure of a soul’s journey in both this life and the next depends upon the images of Islamic eschatology and the virtues associated with the practices of the religion of Islam, as well as the virtues particular to following the Shi`ite Imams. Therefore, it can hardly be said that this is not an Islamic philosophy. While it is true that he seems to adopt certain formal elements of Greek philosophy, such as the emphasis upon moderate conduct and the distinctions between accidental and substantial motion, and the practical and speculative faculties, nevertheless these elements are defined by Sadrâ within the context of Islamic ideas about human virtue, the function of faith and the perceptions and rewards accorded to a soul in the afterlife.
Notes:
1-The Concept and Reality of Existence, Toshihiko Izutsu, Tokyo: Keio Institute of Cultural and Linguistic Studies, 1971, p.58-59.2-See the numerous references to this idea in Histoire de la philosophie islamique, Henri Corbin, Paris: Gallimard, 1964.
3-Sadr al-Dîn al-Shîrâzî, Tafsîr al-qur’ân al-karîm (7 vols., ed. Muhammad Khwâjavî), Qum: Intashârât Bîdâr, n.d., v. 1, p. 112. 4-Ibid., p. 112. 5-Ibid., p. 111. 6-The Republic of Plato (trans. F.M. Cornford), London: Oxford University Press, 1980, p. 142. 7-Introduction to Aristotle (ed. by Richard McKeon), New York: McGraw Hill, Inc., 1947, p. 536. 8-Ibid., p.286. 9-Sadr al-Dîn al-Shîrâzî, al-Hikma al-muta`âliyya fî’l-asfâr al-`aqliyya al-arba`a (9 vols., ed. Muhammad Khwâjavî), Beirut: Dar Ihyâ’ al-Turâth al-`Arabî, 1990, v. 9, p.290. 10-Ibid., p. 274.11-All quotations from The Wisdom of the Throne, James Winston Morris, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1981, p. 191-192.
12-Ibid, p. 193. 13-Ibid., p. 131. 14-al-Hikma al-muta`âliyya, v. 9, p. 285. 15-The Wisdom of the Throne, p. 194. 16-Ibid., 194-195. 17-al-Hikma al-muta`âliyya, v. 9, p. 285. 18-Ibid, p. 285. 19-Ibid., p.285. 20-Ibid., p. 285. 21-Ibid., p.287. 22-Ibid., p. 286. 23-Ibid., p. 286. 24-Ibid., p. 286.
Democracy: As Seen in the Political Philosophy of Imám Khumayní
Hamid Hadji Haidar, Institute of Islamic Studies, UK
Abstract
Understanding Imám Khumayní’s political philosophy, as an entity, is not feasible unless one gains a proper insight into each of the numerous, essential and fundamental blocks which, together, constitute and define his political legacy. This paper – the first in a series – targets his concept, and model, of democracy – comparing it with definitions offered by Western scholars – integrating it with other vital ‘ingredients’ which pivot the late Imám’s political thought – namely, ‘Wiláyat-i Faqíh’, freedom and republicanism. It concludes that the origin of government and law ought to be, according to the Imám, both divine and human in nature; and this may be executed, democratically as well as Islamically, by means of ‘competitive elitism’, ‘governmental periodicity’ and a ‘divine-human government’.
Introduction
The late Imám Khumayní - founder of the Islamic Republic of Irán - is re-known as a distinguished scholar in different fields of Islamic Sciences including philosophy, law, jurisprudence, tafsír etc. Moreover, he is considered as a revolutionary figure who had succeeded to lead a victorious revolution against a powerful Imperial government which was supported by a superpower. Unusually, however, he is not yet known as a theorist within the domain of political philosophy. Whereas in addition to his theory on Wiláyat-i Faqíh - i.e. supremacy of a religious leader over government - he has expressed numerous other fundamental political principles - such as the nature of Man, origin and objectives of the State, legitimacy, social contract, rule of law, genres of government, democracy, constitutionalism, freedom, justice and many more - without which, a correct understanding of principles like Wiláyat-i Faqíh would not be properly attained.
This article attempts, albeit concisely, to explain one of these fundamental principles, namely the concept of democracy.
The Concept of Democracy
The ‘Concise Oxford Dictionary of Politics’ defines democracy as the ‘rule by people’1 as a matter of fact, democracy was viewed negatively - with respect to government - both in ancient Greece and in 18th century Europe where it had re-appeared; after all, its fascination arises from the explicit meanings that it embodies. The history of democracy (as an idea) is complicated in nature and implicative of different contexts; there exists a vast spectrum on that score.2 The advantages of democracy should not be negated solely on the basis that it bears contradictions with regards to its definition and structure. As for Imám Khumayní, he extols democracy and offers an Islamic model of it, labeled ‘true democracy’. He does, of course, condemn other models of democracy:
We should act on the basis of justice. We shall teach them the meaning of democracy. Western democracy is corrupt and so is the eastern one. True democracy is the Islamic one. This is democracy; not that which the West - who are in favour of capitalism - have, nor what the East - who have put people through overwhelming suppression - have.
3In discussions concerning the meaning of democracy, three general concepts have emerged with respect to the form of government i.e. (a) in terms of the sources of power of government; (b) in terms of the goals which government seeks and (c) in terms of the policies adopted in the formation of government.4
People’s Will: Origin of a State’s Power
Some authorities define democracy as a form of government arising from the will of people5 i.e. rather than making political decisions directly, they do so by means of selected representation who, subsequently, become accountable to them.6 According to this viewpoint, it follows that democracy is used in the sense of ‘majority rule’ since the exercise of people’s views is outwardly impossible.7 Schumpeter terms this approach ‘classic democracy’8 and criticizes it.9
The Imám recognizes the authority of people and regards the government as the product of the people’s will. People have the right to determine a political regime, approve constitution and choose the leader, president or representatives of the legislative body.
Concerning the determination of a political regime, Imám Khumayní states:
I ask everyone to vote for the Islamic Republic; however, you are free to vote… you have the right to register for an imperial regime, democratic regime or whatever else on the ballot; you are free.
10Concerning the approval of the Constitution of the Islamic Republic, Imám Khumayní states:
The validity of the ‘Council for Establishing the Constitution’ is actualized by means of their appointment by the people; the criterion is the nation’s vote. At times, the people vote directly and (at) other times, they choose representatives to vote on their behalf. In any event, the right belongs to the people themselves.
11Emphasizing the selection of governmental authorities, i.e. the leader, president, and representatives of the legislative body, he states:
The Wiláyat-i Faqíh - or supreme religious leader - is an individual whose morality, ‘patriotism’, knowledge and competency are evident to the people; and it is the people, themselves, who choose such a person/figure.
12 It is the people, again, who ought to manage the disciplinary, administrative and other affairs of their government. The people have the right to elect their president; and this is how it should be. According to human rights, it is you, the people, who should determine your destinies. 13 The Majlis (Iranian Parliament) lies on top of all other institutions and this very Majlis is - nothing but - the embodiment of the people.14Elsewhere, Imám Khumayní incorporates sovereignty with the common masses and rejects the notion of it being confined to a specific stratum of society:
Elections aren’t restricted to any, specific, people be they the clergyship, political parties etc.; they belong to all people. The peoples' destinies are in their own hands .
15 Today, elections are situated in the hands of the people. During elections, all citizens are equal to one another, be he/she the president, the prime minister, the farmer working on his/her farm or the bázárí. In other words, each person is, unreservedly equated with one vote.16Moreover, Imám Khumayní approves of the ‘rule of majority’17 and the concept of ‘representative democracy’18 Thus, Imám ‘authorizes’ democracy in terms of the origin of a government’s power and he defines it as being the formation of government based on the will of the masses. Note, that Imám Khumayní’s perspective differs from that of pure democracy and liberalism in that the people - according to him - ought to execute their authority in a particular manner i.e. the will of the masses ought to be bound by divine will; and this binding is materialised/manifested by the guardianship of the Wiláyat-i Faqíh over the government. As the Imám Khumayní states:
Without a Wiláyat-i Faqíh, a government becomes despotic. If it does not accord with God’s command and the president is not elected under the order of a faqíh, it - the government - becomes illegitimate; and its despotism is a result of it being illegitimate. Obeying this (form of government) is on par with obeying despotism.
19From what has been mentioned thus far, one may conclude that the Imám Khumayní believes in ‘divine-human rule’ to which he has labelled ‘Islamic Democracy’20 Bearing in mind that democracy - according to some authorities21 - is in possession of degrees, one can, accordingly, label ‘Islamic Democracy’ as ‘democratic’ and it is even possible - according to those authorities22 who believe in the synthesis of democracy and non-democracy - to label it as ‘semi-democratic’.
Democracy: Freedom and General Welfare
Some define democracy as being that governance through which one can achieve one of the following values: equality, freedom, developing personal behaviour, general welfare, the achievement of aims 23 etc.; the distinction of democracy lies in its giving value to an aim or goal, which may be obtained by means of a people's government, hence freedom and equality.24 According to this theory, a democratic government is one which optimally provides general welfare, in sharp contrast to a despotic government where the will of an individual or small group of individuals governs the (destiny of an) entire society.25 Imám appreciates democracy and defines it as that governance which leads to freedom, justice and general welfare. In one of his speeches which he made before the victory of the Islamic Revolution, he stated:
By the grace of the Almighty, we shall not cease fighting until we have overthrown the reactionary Imperialistic government and have established a just Islamic one. We shall continue on this route until a democratic government - in the true sense of the word- has taken over the despotic regime.
26 Elsewhere, he has stated :In an Islamic republic, there is freedom; there is independence; people, in all walks of life, ought to live in comfort within an Islamic republic. In an Islamic republic, Islamic justice is materialised/manifested.
27Here, Imám is distancing himself from pure democracy by proposing certain restrictions for freedom. He believes that democratic freedoms depend on the principles of the Holy religion of Islám; as he has said
Freedom is bound to laws;
28 and freedoms granted should be carried out within Islamic laws and the Constitution, in the best possible way.29Hence, on introducing the notion of an Islamic Republic, Imám Khumayní is proposing divine-human rule as its basis/pivot.
Democracy: Free and Competitive Elections
Schumpeter regards the above two theories on democracy as inaccurate and defines democracy in terms of the method and mode through which institutions function. He argues that the democratic method is that which consists of a series of systematic and organised arrangements (regulations) - which form the domain of political decision-makings - by means of which an individual may acquire the power of decision-making via competitive elections and the votes of people.30 Here, the fate of the democratic citizen is, solely, the right to, periodically, elect the government which, subsequently, acts on behalf of its citizens. The essence of democracy, according to this version, lies within the citizens' power of being able to substitute one government with another and thus protecting oneself from one important potential danger i.e. were elected decision-makers to transform themselves into any form of irrevocable power etc. As long as people have the capacity to alter their governments and as long as they have a choice - in election - of at least two, different, parties, then the threat of despotism can be kept safely under control.31
After the second world war, a discussion had emerged between outstanding theoreticians concerning the definition of democracy i.e. defining it on the basis of the sources or goals of a government or - as figures such as Schumpeter believed - in terms of the method of governance. In the 1970s, the argument terminated, with Schumpeter as its victor. The scholars had made a distinction between the pure, mental definitions - and the ideal concepts - of democracy on the one hand, and the empirical, descriptive and institutional definitions on the other. They concluded that only the latter definition may be seen to be sufficient and, consequently, be put into practice. As a result, many American authorities had abandoned the theoretical discussions on democracy based on general hypotheses etc. and had attempted to understand the genres of democratic institutions, together with the quality of their functions and the causes of their evolution and devolution.32 Here, democratic governments are placed alongside totalitarian and traditional authoritarian governments in order for them to be compared and contrasted; democratic governments, here, by nature, comprise of the following features :
1. free elections
2. competition between at least two different parties aiming to acquire power
3. periodicity of governments and their being able to be shifted from hand to hand
4. rule of the eliteImám has not described or analysed parties or democracy itself within, then, existing democratic governments; hence, nothing may be ascribed to him on the subject of ‘experimental’ democracy. However, one may compare his notion of good governance with the methods of rule within democratic, authoritarian and totalitarian governments.
Concerning free elections, he considers people as being free with respect to elections, especially since the freedom to vote is a phenomenon which had been existing since the beginning of Islam. Thus, he repeatedly demanded the religious scholars (‘ulamá) and people to look after their free elections carefully and not to allow authorities to prevent such free elections:
When the time of referendum is announced (to determine the new government, in Irán, after the victory of the Islamic Revolution), my vote is for the Islamic Republic. Those who follow Islam, ought to seek (for) an Islamic Republic. However, in practice, people are free to ask for an imperialistic or western mode of government. The freedom to vote has existed in Islam from the very outset.
33 The ‘ulamá and people are obliged to refuse anyone from obstructing peoples’ freedom to vote freely.34 Today the elections are in the hands of the people. No one has the right to order another with respect to elections. In Islám, an authority may not order one with regards to one's choice of representative.... because people are free.35Concerning the necessity of competition amongst political groups that are both Islamic and revolutionary, together with the advantages of pluralism, the Imám Khumayní has said:
Divine parties invite people towards God and not towards nature…parties need not be either all good or bad…rather, the criterion - which is important - is the idea of a party per se.
36 In an Islamic state, ijtihád (the process of deriving divine laws by means of argumentation and reasoning) ought to be open to all; the Islamic revolution and state, by its very nature, demand that even ijtihádí ideas which seem to be opposing one another - in various fields - ought to be put forward freely and, that, no-one has the right or power to obstruct it. 37 Proper criticisms lead to a society’s development. No-one has the right to regard him/herself free from criticism. Naturally, true criticisms are inherently different to those motivated by political ambitions/behaviour. If a person or group aim to get rid of or, even, destroy a member of the government (of the Islamic Republic), it will be Islám and the revolution which will suffer before actually causing harm to anyone or anything else.38Regarding the periodicity and modification/alteration of an Islamic government, together with the necessity for it’s non-permanent nature, he states:
The imperialistic method is based on a principle of non-communication. An authority ought to be in the hands of the people; this is a rational matter. Any rational Man would accord to this fact. Within republic states, the right to vote is solely due to the people i.e. the people can say No! to that government which - according to them - has committed wrong actions. Within an Islamic Republic, and the system of a Wiláyat-i Faqíh, the situation is even more clear i.e. Islám has delineated certain abilities required from he who possesses authority over a
people; hence, once any of these requirements are seen to have been lost, the person’s governance automatically terminates.39In brief, Imám was of the viewpoint that experts - in all fields, namely political, social, religious, military, economic etc. - ought to govern i.e. that governance per se is a technique which must be upheld by groups of experts in different fields. In this respect, he states:
When we declare that the right of governance belongs to ‘just Islamic mujtahids’, a question sometimes emerges within the minds of people whether these just mujtahids are, in fact, competent enough to supervise and administer military, political and economic affairs. However, this argument is irrelevant for we know that the administration of affairs - in every state - is carefully executed under the supervision of a number of experts. Even during the time of Imám ‘Alí’s government, this great person did not carry out and execute all administrative affairs.
40In summary, the Imám had approved of democratic methods and institutions. He describes Islamic government as being democratic from an institutional standpoint; this view had lead to his theory on ‘competitive elitist democracy’.
Conclusion
After analysing present democracies, Imám had classified them into:
(a) totalitarian democracy, and
(b) liberal democracy;
Imám rejected both systems and proposed a model of ‘Islamic Democracy’, which is based on the will of the masses, as well as the will of Almighty God. He regards this model as ‘true’ democracy.
Imám has elaborated on different dimensions of the essence and nature of this true democracy. On the subject of the source of governmental power, he believed that an Islamic Republic would be ideal and exemplary i.e. where a republic is shaped by the will of a free people, the government becomes democratic, in nature. In his opinion, it is the people who have the right to determine one’ government, approve one’s constitution and select one’s leader, president and members of parliament; and since a complete consensus of a nation and the direct interference of people in administering governmental affairs are, both, inherently impossible, he puts forward the concept of ‘majority rule‘ and ‘representative democracy’. On the other hand, since people ought to, in principle, obey the divine law - within an Islamic system - the will of the people, therefore, is confined by the will of the Almighty; hence, in this version of democracy, that which is advocated by Imám is a ‘divine-human rule’.
On the question of what aims and goals a democratic government seeks to achieve, the Imám responds by defining democracy as a system that provides freedom, justice and general welfare. Notice that Imám has distanced his belief and definitions from the former despotic regime’s concept of ‘private space’; rather, he restricts people’s freedom by means of execution of the divine law, thus keeping aloof from any form of liberal regime. Therefore, the Imám believed in a ‘divine-human government’.
On the subject of method and institutionalisation of government, Imám approaches the notion of ‘competitive elitism’ to a great extent i.e. he accepts competitive free elections and governmental periodicity to be held by political, religious and economic elite etc. He approves of experimental democracy and, firmly, rejected regimes based upon totalitarianism and despotism.
As a final word, it is worth noting that although Imám was sensitive towards adding the term ‘democratic’ to ‘Islamic Republic of Iran’, he, nevertheless, commended its principles within his political philosophy.
Notes:
1-The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Politics, (ed.) Lain Mclean, (Oxford: O xford University Press, 1996), p.129.2-David Held, Models of Democracy, (Britain: Polity Press in association with Basil Blackwell, 1987), p. 14.
3-Sahifeh-e-Nur, by The Centre for Cultural Documents of Islamic revolution, vol. 5, (Tehran: Irshad Ministry, 1982), p. 238.4-Samuel P. Huntington, The Third Wave, Democratization in the Late Twentieth Century, (Oklahoma: The University of Oklahoma Press, 1991), p.8.
5-Jean Louis Quermonne; Les Regimes Politiques Occidentaux; (Pares: Seuil, 1986), p. 15.
6-Carl Cohen, Democracy, (New York: The University of Georgia Press, 1973), chapter 7.
7-Ibid., chapter 6.8-J. Schumpeter, Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy, (London: Allen and Unwin, 1976), p. 250.
9-Ibid., pp. 268-256. 10-Sahifeh-e-Nur, p. 220. 11-Ibid., vol. 7, p. 122. 12-Ibid., vol. 10, p. 155. 13-Ibid., vol. 5, p. 105. 14-Ibid., vol. 17, p. 160. 15-Ibid., vol. 18, pp. 245 and 246. 16-Ibid., p. 203. 17-Ibid., vol. 11, p. 76. 18-Ibid., vol. 7, p. 122. 19-Ibid., vol. 9, p. 251. 20-Ibid., vol. 5, p. 238. 21-Keneth A. Bollen, " Political Democracy: Conceptual and Measurement Traps", A studies in Comparative Development 25, (Spring 1990), pp. 13, 14, 18, 20-23.22-Huntington, p. 14, 15.
23-Held, p. 16.
24-Cohen, chapter 10.
25-Mclean, p. 135. 26-Sahifeh-e-Nur, vol. 2, pp. 62, 63. 27-Ibid., vol. 5, p. 279. 28-Ibid., p. 227 29-Ibid., vol. 12, p. 180. 30-Schumpeter, p. 250.31-Held, p. 253.
32-G. Bringham Powell, Jr., Contemporary Democracies, (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1992), pp. 2-7.
33-Sahifeh-e-Nur, vol. 5, p. 130. 34-Ibid., p. 122. 35-Ibid., vol., 18, pp. 203,204. 36-Ibid., p. 17, pp. 132,133. 37-Ibid., p. 21, pp. 46,47. 38-Ibid., p. 48. 39-Ibid., vol. 3, p. 141. 40-Imám Khumayní, The book of Trade, vol. 2, (Al-Najaf Al-Ashraf: Al-Adab Publication, 1976), p. 498.
Perception: A Way to Perfection in Sadra
Bilal Kuspinar, McGill University, Canada
Abstract
It was customary for almost all the Muslim thinkers in the past to render the meaning of the Divine Scripture and the Prophetic sayings either in the form of conformation to, or confirmation of, their system of thought, whether be it theological, philosophical or mystical. Although the method and the terminology they have employed seemed far distinct from those of the so-called professional exegetes (mufassirun), they claimed, with no less vigor than the latter ones, proximity and fidelity to the spirit of the religious text. Among the later Muslim philosophers probably it was Sadra, who, having benefited immensely from his vast Islamic heritage and modeled his metaphysical system in a quite novel fashion upon the foundations of that heritage, has distinguished himself with one quality: the synthesis or the unity that he has displayed in all his intellectual endeavors, as remarked by several scholars of Islamic philosophy. The same is true of his interpretation of the Qur'an, as well. The present paper, concentrating mainly on the exegetical accounts that Sadra suggests with regard to the possible meanings of few verses of the Qur'an, especially in reference to the light-verse (24:35), will examine first as to the nature of perception (idrâk) and its various forms, and then the role it plays in the developmental stages of the soul, leading it to the perfection (kamâl). Sadra draws a distinction between the perfection of the body and that of the soul and asserts further that, before understanding how the latter attains perfection one must observe carefully how the former is perfected. The notion of "perfection" as espoused by his predecessors, like Ibn Sina, who in turn had borrowed from Aristotle's concept of "entelechy", which mainly refers to the actualization of a certain "preparedness" (isti`dâd) of the material intellect (`aql hayűlânî), has very little to offer to Sadra. For everything, including the soul, according to him, there is a specific natural journey towards perfection. The perfection of the soul, however, comes about as a result of its active perception and creation of forms and not because of the occurrence (husűl) of those forms in the soul as understood by Ibn Sina. The philosophical and mystical dimensions of the soul's perfection, along with the heart and its states, are to be explained in detail against the background of Sadra's commentary on the light-verse. Furthermore, the subject will be delineated more profoundly by means of additional arguments to be drawn from the relevant passages of the philosopher's magnum opus, Asfâr.
The place the Qur’an takes up in Sadra’s entire corpora and the role it plays therein, are indisputably immense. It is in fact, apart from the intellectual heritage he took over from his predecessors, one of the essential factors that contributed substantially to the formation and consummation of his overall philosophical system. As compared to many of the Muslim philosophers prior to him, probably with few exceptions, such as al-Ghazali, Sadra’s engagement with and employment of, the Qur’an seems to be quite distinct. For this Divine Scripture seems to penetrate almost in all the aspects of his ideas, whether be it metaphysical, epistemological or eschatological. The present paper, however, will not concern itself with this important issue, which, despite several academic writings that are available and that partially touch the subject,1 deserves on its own an extensive serious re