Chapter IV: Theory of Knowlege - III: The Intellect
A. Introduction
The goal of Sadra's doctrine of the intellect is to show that the human mind ultimately unites itself with the Active Intelligence or the Universal Intellect. Since, according to Sadra, the end of all substantive movement is to achieve a new level of being, knowledge represents, for him, such substantive movement (harka jauhariya) whose end is the union of the human intellect with the transcendent Intellect and hence the achievement of a new level of existence - that of pure, simple intellect. Further, since this evolutionary movement is cumulative, it represents something positive, inclusive of the lower levels of being and not excluding or negating them. The key term for his doctrine of the intellect is, therefore, “the simple.” This term means that that which exists at the lower levels with separate or mutually exclusive parts, exists at the higher levels as mutually inclusive and unitary.
The Aristotelian-Ibn-Sinaian theory of the intellect affirms that in intellective experience the potential intellect becomes actual, that it becomes identical with the “forms” of things and that this happens through the action of the Active Intelligence upon the human mind. It should be noted, however, that Aristotle's view is grounded in a purely philosophic theory of knowledge (particularly the idea of potentiality and its actualization) and has little by way of mystical tendencies. Ibn Sina's thought has been strongly influenced by neo-Platonism and definitely ends up in a kind of mysticism. Nevertheless, he keeps his theory of knowledge almost strictly philosophical in the sense that the end of knowledge remains cognition and is not the transformation of the soul into a new level or order of being. For Sadra, on the other hand, knowledge is a form of existence (al-ìlm nahw min al-wujud), as he reiterates throughout his writing. From the other end, the doctrine of Illumination as propounded by al-Suhrawardi and his commentators and the Sufi gnosis, as it found its classic and monumental formulation at the hands of Ibn 'Arabi, taught a real and literal identity of the human intellect with Light or the Active Intellect. But this illuminationist-gnostic doctrine did not formulate the idea of a systematic substantive change as the fundamental process of nature. Sadra's performance essentially consists in taking over this gnostic goal and grounding it philosophically in his doctrine of substantive change, supported in turn by his theory of the priority of existence over essence. This is carried out by an extensive and consistent critique of Ibn Sina's doctrine of the intellect at the following central points:
1. The doctrine of “abstraction”
2. Ibn Sina's account of the “simple intellect”
3.Ibn Sina's rejection of the identity of the mind and intelligibles in actual knowledge.
B. The Problem of Abstraction
From among the numerous passages where Sadra has criticized the doctrine of abstraction, these two excerpts may be noted:
These philosophers. when they read in the books of the ancient sages that the various types of knowledge - sense perception, imagination, wahm, and intellection - take place by a kind of abstraction, took this “abstraction” to mean that certain qualities or parts (of the known object) are removed while others are preserved. On the contrary, all knowledge comes through a sort of existence - one level of existence being replaced by another.
The meaning of their (i.e., the philosophers') statement that every type of knowledge involves a kind of abstraction and that difference in the ranks of knowledge corresponds to the difference in the levels of abstraction is - as we have already said - not that abstraction involves the removal of certain qualities and retention of certain others, but its meaning is that existence changes levels - from lower and baser to higher and nobler. Similarly, the “separation (tajarrud”) of man and his moving away from this world to the hereafter is nothing but the replacement of this level of existence by another. Thus, when the soul is perfected and becomes actual intellect, it is not the case that it loses some faculties, like the perceptive, and comes to have others, like the rational.
According to Sadra, the Aristotelian-Ibn Sinaian theory of abstraction holds that, whereas the objects of knowledge change - from the sensibles, through the imaginables to the intelligibles - the cognizing subject, the soul, remains the same. The soul, that is to say, simply receives forms of different degrees of abstraction, without its own substance being affected. This is not the case. The soul itself undergoes an evolution and from its initial being of the material order, it becomes, at the intellectual plane, a being of the intelligible order.
This evolution of the soul itself - the successive levels of its existence (nasha'at) - is an important proof, for Sadra, of the law of substantive change to which the entire field of natural existence is subject, a law from whose operation only God and the transcendent intelligences (which are parts or attributes of God) are exempt. The soul, therefore, not merely “receives” forms but creates and becomes them, i.e., becomes literally identical with them. This doctrine of Sadra obviously carries to its extreme conclusion, under the impact of the neo-Platonic way of thinking, the Aristotelian doctrine of cognition that the soul “becomes” its objects in the act of knowledge. For Sadra, the soul “becoming” its objects is not a temporary affair lasting only during the act of knowledge, but denotes a new level of existence which the soul achieves; particularly at the level of “acquired” or absolute intellective power, the soul becomes ''pure act (al-fìl al-sarf),” i.e., pure knowledge without any trace of potentiality. Aristotle had applied the term “pure act (kathara energeia)” only to the transcendental Active Intellect which Alexander of Aphrodijias identified with God.
C. Ibn Sina on the “Simple Intellect”
Sadra's substitution of the concept of evolution for abstraction in a process of cognition leads him to formulate his doctrine of the “simple (basit),” where again Ibn Sina comes under criticism. Sadra, however, gives credit to Ibn Sina for having at least formulated the concept of “simple knowledge” and defends this concept against the attacks of al-Raza and al-Suhrawardi. Ibn Sina had sought to establish the existence of a simple knowledge by saying that if a person is asked a question which he had not pondered before or is asked a series of related questions which he had not thought of in this manner before, he feels a sense of confidence in himself that he can answer the question or questions before he enters upon giving detailed answers. This sense of confidence and self-assurance shows that he has the knowledge in a simple form even though he attains detailed knowledge only when he answers the questions in detail. This detailed knowledge is, therefore, preceded by a simple knowledge; otherwise, the person would not have the confidence and self-assurance that he possesses. This simple knowledge is the creator of the detailed knowledge; in it the concepts lie united and undifferentiated while in the detailed knowledge they become multiple and differentiated; finally, simple knowledge is beyond time while detailed knowledge is in time, since concepts arise in it seriatim.
This doctrine was rejected by al-Razi and al-Suhrawardi who held that knowledge is either potential or actual: when it is potential, it cannot be related to any given detailed form; when it is actual, it must be related to a single form.
There is, therefore, no form of knowledge which is both actual and yet related to all forms at once. Al-Razi admitted that many forms may become present in the mind, but this does not prove a creative intellect which is all these forms at the same time.
In defending the reality of simple knowledge, Sadra says that just as existents are of different degrees, the lower ones being characterized by mutual exclusiveness - like matter whose every given part excludes the rest and thereby generates physical extension - while the higher ones become more and more inclusive, so is the case with knowledge since knowledge is no more than a kind of existence - the higher forms of knowledge being all-inclusive and creative of all knowledge.
But Sadra is highly critical of Ibn Sina, who, while affirming simple intellect, at the same time affirmed abstraction in knowledge and denied the absolute identity of the intellect with the intelligibles. Because of his commitment to the idea of abstraction, Ibn Sina thought that higher forms of knowledge come about by elimination of certain things, particularly of matter and its concomitants - shape, color, etc. This led him to say that, e.g., man as an intellectual concept or the universal “man” has no body, since body makes a particular man. Hence Ibn Sina thought that the soul, at the apogee of its development as pure intellect, sheds everything about the body and the bodily faculties - like the affective, nutritive, perceptive, and imaginative. For Sadra, on the other hand, the simple and the higher includes the lower and the detailed, and does not exclude any of the lower levels of existence. Otherwise, it would not be simple but deprived and partial. Hence, he says that the same soul is “ intellective, perceptive, smelling, tasting, walking, growing, self-nourishing, appetitive, and angry.”
Sadra draws support for this thesis by profuse quotations from the (pseudo) Theologia Aristotelis to the effect that the higher realm of the intellect contains everything below here in a higher and nobler manner; that the soul, when it comes into the body, fashions a man on the pattern of man in the higher realm; that, therefore, in that higher realm, man possesses all the faculties of life, perception, imagination and intellection, in a much superior manner to what is to be found in the “images” here down below since an image can never compare with the original; and finally, that “The First Man has strong and manifest perceptual faculties surpassing those of the image-man here.”
The First Man “does not perceive perceptibles of the order of this lower existence. This is the reason why the perception of this lower man is in contact with and draws (strength) from the perception of the Higher Man just as fire down here contacts and draws from that High Fire.”
For Sadra, the dictum that higher realms of existence contain and do not negate the low scales is the very meaning of continuous evolution where both the terms continuous and evolution are equally important. It is evolution because it involves a new emergent; it is continuous because it contains the previous stages “in a higher form.” As we pointed out in our discussion of substantive movement (Chapter V of Part I), Sadra gives there the analogy of the continuity of a body, the difference being that since one part of a body cannot contain other parts, extension results from this mutual exclusiveness of parts and thus a body is “extensively continuous.” In the case of the higher scales of existence - the soul and the intellect - however, “intensive continuity (jamìya)” is the result. This is the very meaning of ''simple existence (al-wujud al-basit),” and of Sadra's oft-repeated statement that “a simple nature contains or is all things.”
As we shall see in our discussion of eschatology, Sadra uses this doctrine to prove physical resurrection of some kind. But at this point we must take up the question of the identity of the intellect and the intelligible, without which, according to Sadra, one cannot prove the simplicity of the intellect but which was strongly rejected by Ibn Sina.
D. Identity of the Intellect and the Intelligible
While subscribing to the general Peripatetic doctrine that the soul receives and becomes the forms of its objects of knowledge - in the sense that the knowing subject must be itself free from any particular form if it is to receive the forms of the cognizables - Ibn Sina had assailed the doctrine that the soul literally becomes its objects, a doctrine he attributed to Porphyry, who, in Ibn Sina's words, “was fond of figurative, poetic, and mystic diction.” Ibn Sina describes the soul as a “ place or receptacle (makan, mahall) of forms,” for all talk of the soul's literally becoming these forms is unintelligible.
Sadra vigorously attacks Ibn Sina on this issue and accuses him both of inconsistency and failure to grasp the nature of knowledge, particularly intellective knowledge. As for Ibn Sina's inconsistency, this is because in the same breath he described God's knowledge as a unity where all concepts literally interpenetrate and do not leave any room for any duality or multiplicity as between them or as between them and God's mind;
and, on the other hand, as we have seen above, he affirms the existence of a simple, creative intellect in man. How can forms exist in this simple intellect unless they are a unity and how can the human soul receive these forms from the Creative Intellect unless the former unites with the latter, which Ibn Sina also denies since he holds that if the human soul were to unite with the Creative Intellect, then either the Creative Intellect will become divisible or all human souls will possess identical knowledge?
Sadra's refutation of Ibn Sina's arguments against the identity of the intellect and the intelligible is squarely based on his doctrine of the substantive change or evolution and the reality of existence to the exclusion of essence. The substance of Ibn Sina's argument was that if something becomes A, this means that it receives the form of A; but when subsequently it becomes B, it must abandon the form of A in order to receive the form of B, since it is absurd to say that something at the same time receives the forms of both A and of B. Therefore, when the soul becomes A, it receives the form of A and when it becomes B, it discards the form A, and receives the form B. Hence, in itself it can neither be A nor B but something receptive of them. Sadra argues that this way of thinking likens the process of knowledge to accidental change, not substantive evolution. In the case of accidental or superficial change, it is true that when a thing becomes hot, it receives the form of heat and when it becomes cold, it can only receive the form of cold when it discards the form of heat. This is because accidental change cannot accommodate contradictories. In the case of substantive change, however, the case is very different, for substantive change is not just simple change but evolution. In evolutionary change, or development, previous forms are not discarded or simply replaced by new forms but are consummated and perfected. This demonstrates the absolute reality of existence over against essence, for whereas essences are multiple, static and mutually repellent, existence is unitary and inclusive: conceptually, growth, nourishment, locomotion, and knowledge may be all different, but they all come together in concrete human existence.
Evolution consists in carrying over, not negating, the previous grades of perfection and yet transcending them.
Since Ibn Sina did not concede the principle of evolutionary change and did not clearly affirm the unique reality of existence over against essence - which alone can supply the principle of identity-in-difference and difference-in-identity - he could not solve the riddle of knowledge, for knowledge and existence are the same. That knowledge represents evolutionary change is shown by the fact that when the soul knows A and then passes on to the knowledge of B, the knowledge of A is not thereby destroyed but consummated. New knowledge does not convert previous knowledge into ignorance, but puts it into the perspective of an ampler, more meaningful form of knowledge. Just like existence, the scale of knowledge moves from the rudimentary, the multiple, the mutually exclusive, to the higher, more complex, more inclusive and simpler forms.
This scale ends in a simple, intuitive kind of intellective cognition where the human soul becomes identical with the transcendent Active Intelligence.
It should be pointed out that there appears to exist a curious contradiction in Sadra's account of the evolution of the intellect from the basic or elemental “necessary” propositions or truths to the higher forms of cognition. The contradiction exists in our philosopher's characterization of the value of the necessary truths like the law of contradiction, the proposition that the whole is greater than its parts, the general idea of being, etc. Following al-Farabi and Ibn Sina, Sadra regards the knowledge of these general concepts and propositions as the first stage of the actualization of the potential human intellect. But then Sadra, in consistency with his doctrine of evolutionism in general and cognitive evolutionism in particular, goes on to say that a knowledge of these general truths has very little worth since these are only rudimentary and elementary and the general has less value compared to the concrete and the indefinite compared to the definite, just as a genus is lower in value than a concrete and definite species.
Sadra even rebukes Ibn Sina for making the possibility of the survival of all human souls - including the relatively undeveloped ones - dependent on a knowledge of these primary truths with the sarcastic remark that a happiness that consists in a knowledge of such mere generalities and trivialities as these rudimentary truths is hardly worthy of an afterlife for a human soul. Yet Sadra has consecrated a special chapter in his discussion of the doctrine of the intellect not only to a defense of these truths but also to proving that the law of contradiction is the source and highest principle of all knowledge and that this necessary principle is related to knowledge as God, the Necessary Being, is related to other existents.
The defense of the “primary truths” against intellectual skepticism is, of course, justified, but their description as the highest and most creative form of knowledge hardly squares with their characterization as vague generalities, indefinite truths, and pure tautologies.
This last view is reiterated by Sadra in his discussion of the two orders of knowledge - the one existing in the natural world, i.e., the human soul, and the other in the transcendent intelligence. Sadra tells us (following al-Farabi and Ibn Sina) that knowledge in the human soul starts with the more general and less valuable primary truths and advances to more concrete, definite, and existential knowledge whereas in the case of the separate Intelligences, this order is reversed. But this story is true of the human soul only insofar as the genesis of its knowledge is concerned.
When the soul perfects its knowledge and becomes “acquired intellect” and achieves an existential status analogous to that of the Active Intelligence, its knowledge-order also becomes like that of the Active Intelligence.
In view of this, it becomes difficult to hold that primary and general truths, like the law of contradiction, have a status in the realm of knowledge analogous to the status of God in the realm of being.
In addition to refuting Ibn Sina's arguments against the absolute identity of the intellect and the intelligible, Sadra seeks to establish this identity with a positive proof from an analysis of the term “intelligible” or “actually intelligible.” Something which is actually intelligible, contends Sadra, must be ipso facto both self-intelligent and self-intellected since an “intelligible” is unthinkable without an ''intelligent.” Now, if we suppose that the intelligible and the intelligent are two different entities and the relationship between them is, therefore, a contingent one, the intelligible will not, in that case, be intelligible when it is considered out of relation with that intelligent which has been supposed to be other than itself. The intelligible will not, therefore, be intelligible, which is a contradictio in supposito. It follows, therefore, that an intelligible must be self-intelligible, i.e., serf-intelligent, whether or not there is something else which intellects it. Hence the identity of the intelligible and the intellect.
Now, all pure forms free from matter, whether they are such by themselves or whether they are rendered such by a knowing mind, are self-intelligible in this sense. Therefore, they are self-intelligent whether any other agent thinks them or not. Sadra once again draws an analogy between the intelligible and the sensible and asserts that just as the actually sensible and the actually sentient are identical - since neither of the two can be conceived without the other - so are the actually intelligible and the actually intelligent unthinkable without each other.
It is obvious, however, that despite Sadra's postulation of an Active Sense as an analogue to the Active Intelligence, this analogy will not hold in the present context. For the analogy to be perfect, Sadra should be able to say that just as an actual intelligible is ipso facto self-intelligent, so must an actual sensible be self-sentient and that no other sentient is necessary for the actual sensible besides itself. This, however, he is unable to say on his own principles and in fact he does not make any such claim. The reason for the breakdown of the analogy is that the sensible form, even when it becomes actually sensible, is not free from its material nature, whereas the intelligible form is by definition totally free from matter. And, in fact, Sadra recurrently defines intellective knowledge as “an existent free from matter”
or a “pure form free from matter”
or a being which is not veiled from, or divided against, itself, as is the case with a material being.
But a sensible or imaginative form is not free from its relationship to matter in this sense, for even though, as we have seen in the preceding two chapters, these forms are also created by the soul itself, they still bear some relationship to matter. The introduction of the analogy of sense in this context to prove the identity of the intellect anti the intelligible, therefore, appears to be out of place.
From this account of the intellect and the intelligible it follows that forms or (Platonic) Ideas constitute a transcendental realm of pure knowledge where the entire range of Ideas is one unitary self-conscious being.
This realm is the transcendental Active Intelligence of which the Peripatetics speak.
It is this realm which creates the world of matter with material forms and it is with this realm that the human mind becomes united when it becomes the recipient of intellectual knowledge. The view of the Peripatetics that such a union is not possible because in the case of such union either the Active Intelligence will become divisible when several human souls unite with it or that every human soul will know the entire contents of the Active Intelligence and thus the knowledge of all human souls will be identical, is false. Indeed, for Sadra, all intellectual knowledge comes about by a union of the human mind with the Active Intelligence.
To understand the nature of the union of the human soul with the Active Intelligence, it is necessary to keep two points firmly in mind. The first is, what has just been proved, viz., the identity of the intellect and the intelligible. The second important point, which has also been stated above, is the unitary character of a simple being like the Active Intelligence. We have seen that the progression of knowledge is from the multiple and the mutually exclusive to the simple and the mutually inclusive. Of this simplicity of intellective being, the Active Intelligence is the ideal. Such simplicity, let it be restated, is not, strictly speaking, the character of essences but of existence. What happens in the progression of being is that an ever-increasing number of essences is “taken in” and absorbed by a progressively higher scale of being and as existence becomes more and more strong and explicit, essences tend to become more and more implicit and recoil upon existence, losing their own being, as it were, until, when we reach pure Intelligences or God, all essences are “lost” and become “interiorized'' in themselves, and Pure Existence takes over.
In this way one must conceive of the simplicity and unity of the content of the Active Intelligence. But this does not mean that by being united with a human soul the Active Intelligence will either become multiple and divisible or the knowledge of all human souls will become identical. To facilitate this understanding, we might give an illustration. The idea “animal” is a unity in itself, while at the same time containing several ideas under it, e.g., man, horse, bull, lion, etc. When we say “horse,” we designate an animal, but we do not say that in “horse,” “animal” has been partialized or made divisible: “animal'' is not partitioned into these various species of animals. Nor would it be true to say that by being an animal, horse and bull become identical in content, for a horse is a horse and a bull is a bull. The unity of a concept like “animal” is, therefore, a different kind of unity from a numerical or a physical one. In a similar way, human souls can all participate in the Active Intelligence without partitioning it and without the contents of their knowledge becoming identical.
Sadra also says that the Active Intelligence has two kinds of being, a being-in-Itself and a being-for-the-other, or a relational being (just as we saw in Chapter III of Part II in the discussion of Prophetic knowledge that the Angel has an absolute being and a relational being); it is in its latter aspect that it is contacted by the human mind.
Fundamental though the idea of the union of the human minds with the Active Intelligence is for all knowledge, it was rejected, says Sadra, by most Muslim philosophers because they wished to avoid any semblance with the doctrine of Incarnation. Incarnation, however, certainly does not follow from this. But the phenomenon of the Prophetic Intellect affirmed by Ibn Sina and others, i.e., the doctrine that special human souls receive from the Active Intelligence a creative power of knowledge, indicates that the human soul does come into some union or communion with the Active Intelligence.
In the case of the ordinary human minds, even after they have actualized their creative intellectual powers to the highest degree, they cannot become absolutely and totally identical with the intelligible realm so long as they are in flesh and blood. The highest point an ordinary accomplished philosophic mind can reach in its lifetime is to witness the intelligible realm from a distance and to identify itself with it partially. Thanks to this partial identification, it can possess a limited share of the creative simple intellect and is able to see what it would be like, when after death, it becomes totally identified with that simple intelligible realm. This creative power is, of course, not shared by everyone equally: humanity presents a whole spectrum ranging from cases of utter stolidity and uncreativity to those who are highly creative and original. There are, however, certain exceptional cases in whom a complete identification takes place and they are able to create all knowledge from within themselves without external instruction. These are Prophets.
Sadra's account of the Prophetic Revelation differs materially from those of al-Farabi and Ibn Sina, as we have seen in Chapter III of Part II of the present work, although it has certain general resemblances with them as well. His differences from these two philosophers result from his doctrine of knowledge and being. Whereas in al-Farabi and Ibn Sina, the Prophet receives the Intellectual Truth as a totality which is then transformed by his power of imagination into a symbolic form and a verbal mode; according to Sadra, the Prophet's mind becomes totally identified with the Active Intelligence both at the intellectual level and the imaginative level - that is to say, it is not the Prophet's mind which creates - although the Prophet has an inner psychological and unconscious compulsion - the symbolic or imaginative truth but his mind “perceives” or rather “becomes” that truth as well as the intellectual truth. This is because, Sadra believes - following al-Suhrawardi and particularly Ibn Àrabi - in an objective, ontological World of Symbols or Images or the ''lower Angels.” The difference between a prophet and a saint (or a sage) is that whereas the prophet is identified with both the inner spiritual (intellectual) and external (i.e., in terms of images, voice, visible figure, etc.) aspects of the Active Intelligence (the Angel), and, therefore, can identify the source of the Revelation, the saint is confined to the inner aspect and cannot identify the source of his knowledge, which, therefore, does not constitute Revelation but inspiration.
Finally, this doctrine of the Simple Intellect - with its principle of identity - is used by Sadra to explain God's knowledge of the particulars, a problem around which has centered a great deal of controversy between the philosophers and the orthodox for centuries. Although we have exhaustively discussed Sadra's concept of divine knowledge in Chapter II of Part II, certain comments are called for in the present context of this problem of “simple knowledge” as related to particulars as possible objects of that knowledge and as related to existence. It was held, on strict Peripatetic grounds, that God cannot know particulars since such knowledge would involve change in God. To overcome this difficulty, Ibn Sina had devised the theory that “God knows all particulars but in a universal way.”
The substance of this theory is that God, being the ultimate cause of all things, knows the whole range of causes and effects and their relations and conglomerations and hence knows all particulars, not as particulars but as universals.
For example, God knows from all eternity that a lunar eclipse will occur when the moon is at such and such a point and is in such and such a relation to the other planets and so much time after such and such previous eclipse. The totality of these descriptions identify that eclipse absolutely as a particular; nevertheless, these descriptions in themselves are universals - only their totality serves to identify a particular eclipse. This eternal knowledge in God is changeless, since it does not depend upon sense perception, which perceives a thing when it occurs but not before or after, and which is, therefore, liable to change. This doctrine of Ibn Sina's was severely criticized by al-Ghazali and al-Razi from the orthodox Islamic standpoint, since it did not allow for God's perception of the particular. Al-Razi, in turn, defined knowledge as a relation so that when God's knowledge of the particulars changes, He Himself does not change. Ibn Sina's commentator al-Tusi attempted to mediate between the positions of Ibn Sina and the Islamic orthodoxy. For al-Tusi, God indeed perceives the particulars as al-Razi holds, but he rejects al-Razi's definition of knowledge as a relation. According to him, change affects only that percipient who is in space and time.
To a percipient who stands beyond space and time - as does God - all particulars are the same, as objects of perception, vis-à-vis one another and also vis-à-vis their existence and non-existence. For a person who reads a book, word by word and line by line, the present moment is differentiated from the 'no more' of the past and 'not yet' of the future, since the lines he has perused belong to the past and the ones he has not yet come to belong to the future, while the present is where he has his gaze fixed. But for a person who has the whole book with him 'folded up' (i.e., in his mind), his relation to all the words and lines is the same, i.e., they are all 'present' to him. So is the divine knowledge in relation to all particulars since it does not require a succession of forms in God's mind.
As we have seen before, Sadra rejects al-Razi's definition of knowledge as a relation. He is also strongly critical of al-Tusi and asks: how can perception take place on the part of a being who is beyond space and time? And how can perception take place without sense-organs? How can spatiotemporal things, whose very nature consists in being mutually exclusive, come together in an undifferentiated manner to a percipient? Sadra then concludes that if particulars are perceived as particulars, they must effect a change in knowledge. He is also highly critical of Ibn Sina, whom he accuses of not having properly understood the nature of 'simple knowledge.' The essence of Sadra's criticism of Ibn Sina - as we have seen in Chapter II of Part II - is that Ibn Sina describes divine knowledge in purely conceptual terms: God is depicted as 'conceiving' one thing after another. It is true that Ibn Sina's aim is to establish (1) the changeless character of God's knowledge, (2) the fact that God's knowledge precedes the existence of things and does not follow them - contrary to what al-Suhrawardi and al-Tusi believe - as is the case with mortal conceptual knowledge, and (3) the fact that God's knowledge is creative and not receptive as human knowledge is.
Yet Ibn Sina's description of divine knowledge in conceptual terms shows that he did not understand that simple knowledge is first and foremost a function of simple existence. And simple existence is an order of being, as we have repeatedly said, which envelops and contains all modes of existence in itself without being identical with them, since existence is systematically ambiguous. God, therefore, knows all things, particular as well as universal, because He envelops all of them as His modes and manifestations - without being predicated of them or they being predicated of Him - in different orders or gradations of existence. For if his knowledge were treated in conceptual terms, as Ibn Sina apparently treats it, it will have to be, as some kind of essence, additional to His existence. God's knowledge is, therefore, nothing but His simple existence, an order of being unique to Him.
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Author: Dr. Fazlur Rahman
