From a Sadraean Point of View
Toward an Ontetic Elimination of the Subjectivistic Self
by Mahmoud Khatami
The overall aim of this book is to examine whether the Sadraean school of transcendent philosophy can contribute to removing those crucial aspects of modern subjectivism which are problematically hidden in the ontological gap within the modern epistemology of the self. I will first delineate this gap, and then selectively retrace three main intellectual movements with regards to the self in Western thought, through a rapid study of Descartes, Hume, Kant and Husserl (Chapter One). I will then reconstruct the transcendent method to provide an entry to the ontetic field in which the subtle ontetic structure of the self is revealed as it is immersed in and, at the same time, present to Being (Chapter Two). This reconstruction obviously implies a step beyond the traditional boundaries of reading Sadra’s transcendent philosophy.
Reformulated in this way, and seeking to bridge the ontological gap by presenting a new vision of the self as presential cognition, the close relation of “Being” and the “being” of the self is exposed here as a performative, existential experience. This involves the claim that a subjectivism which is based upon the epistemology of the self cannot be legitimately detached from ontology, and consequently there is no subject in the modern subjectivistic sense. The subject is only a self as presential cognition.(Chapter Three) In this context, transcendent philosophy is also directed towards answering some immediate conclusions that arise from modern subjectivism.(Chapter Four)
In this book, I will confine myself to the onto-genesis of the self, and put aside several important and essential issues related to consciousness in general. I will focus on the fundamental aspect of subjectivistic ego-centrism. Only have I hinted, where applicable, to some relevant issues in current analytic philosophy of mind as well as phenomenology of consciousness without any detailed discussion.