Alhassanain(p) Network for Heritage and Islamic Thought

The Simple Intellect and the Intelligible World

This principle plays such a central role inSadra’s epistemology that he comes back to its application to the world of theintelligibilia over and over again, phrasing it this time as the simplicity of intelligible realities: “a simple intellect is allintelligibles ” (‘aql basit kull al-ma‘qulat ). Put in simple terms, the simple intellect becomes all that it knows and it knows its objects of knowledge in a simple manner. At this point, it becomes clear in what sense and orderSadra uses intelligibility. SinceSadra always works against the background idea of the primacy of being, he defines intelligibility not in terms of the knowing subject’s mastery of the world but in relation to the degrees of being. This leadsSadra to a tripartite division of being with three corresponding stages of disembodiment.

Sensible forms apply to corporeal bodies, and their disembodiment (naz ‘ ) from matter is conditioned by such attributes as quantity, change, time, etc. Sadr a calls this type of disembodiment ‘imperfect and conditioned’.Imaginal forms apply to things which are suspended between purely material and purely intelligible realms of existence. Sadr a calls their mode of disembodiment ‘medial’ ( mutawassit ). Intellective forms are the intelligible realities of things, which are above the limitations of corporeal andimaginal existence. Their mode of disembodiment is called ‘perfect’ or ‘complete’ ( tamm ) because at this level of gradation nothing is left out of the ontological definition of things. [60] When the soul or the intellect in actuality reaches this stage, it becomes ready for an even higher journey to the world of the Proximate Angels ( al-mala’ikat al-muqarrabun ). It is at this stage of complete disembodiment that the soul, which was once a pure potentiality, becomes a simple intellect:

“By virtue of these meanings, the soul becomes a knower and an intellect in an order of intellection from the First Principle to the Intellects, which are the Proximate Angels, to the Souls, which are the Angels, after the first and then to the heavens and the elements and the form (hay’ah ) of everything and their nature. Thus it becomes an intellectual knower illuminated by the light of the First Intellect.”[61]

In another passage,Sadra ’ posits the simple intellect (‘aql basit ) as the link between the order of being and order of thought:

“When the soul passes from potentiality to actuality, it becomes a simple intellect, which is all things. This is a matter that has been firmly established in our view. The explanation of this is as follows: knowledge and intellection (al-ta‘aqqul ) is a mode of being, and being is united withquiddity . In the same way, knowledge is united with what is known (al-ma‘lum ). Some beings are low in degree and weak and some lofty and strong. Those that are low [in degree] have very little share in meanings (ma‘ani ) and confined to one single meaning like a single quantity (…) whereas those that are noble [in rank] are the essence of the plenitude of meanings even if they are small in quantity or have no quantity at all like the rational soul.

By the same token, knowledge has various kinds, some of which are low in degree such as sense-perception [since] it is impossible to sense multiplesensibles through a single sensation. [But] some are higher in rank, such as intellection, in that a single intellect is sufficient to intellect an infinite number ofintelligibles , as in the case of the simple intellect. In short, whatever has a higher status in being is more capable of [attaining] theknowables (ma‘lumat ) and more intense in containingquiddities . … when we know something through its perfect definition, we know it with its full truth and reality even if we cannot know all of its parts [i.e., its sensate and intellective properties] at once due to the impossibility of knowing the very truth and reality of anything at a given time.”[62]

The simple intellect perceives allintelligibles because simplicity implies intensity in being, and this enables the intellect to become capable of appropriating intelligible forms in a more condensed and comprehensive manner. The simple intellect is not merely intellect in actuality but rather the highest rung of intellection, at which level one comes to know the reality of something in its totality. In contrast to sense experience where one’s access to objects is screened through the available sense data and hence limited to particular instances of sensate objects, the simple intellect or simple knowledge signifies intellectual cognition that comprises in principle everything there is to know about our object of knowledge. When the simple intellect knows the ‘concept’ of humanity, for instance, it can run through the entire spectrum of what it means to be human and know all of its modes, accidents, properties, etc. ForSadra , this conclusion is warranted because to know something in a ‘simple manner’ is to unite with its intelligible essence, which is another way of asserting the unification of the intellect with the intelligible (ittihad al-‘aqil wa’l-ma’qul ). Here, we are once again reminded of the idea that the intelligible reality of things is ontologically more real and epistemologically more reliable than their corporeal templates, and this principle appliesmutatis mutandis to simple intellects that yield simple knowledge.Sadra restates his case in the following paragraph with a historical note:

“The realization of this matter [i.e., the unification of the intellect and the intelligible] is not possible except by having recourse to the principles that were mentioned in the beginnings of this book [i.e., theAsfar ] concerning the view thatbeing is the principal reality in existence and thequiddity is derived from it. It is certain thatbeing allows intensification and diminution, and whatever is strong in being (qawiyy al-wujud ) becomes more inclusive and encompassing of universal meanings and intellectivequiddities that are disengaged [from matter]. Whenbeing reaches the level of the simple intellect, which is completely disengaged from the world of corporeal bodies and quantities, it becomes all of theintelligibilia and all things in a manner more virtuous and nobler than what they are based upon. Whoever has not tasted this path cannot understand the simple intellect, which is the source of all knowledge in detail (al-‘ulum al-tafsiliyyah ). That is why you see most of the virtuous people finding it very difficult and unable to verify in spite of their deep involvement in the sciences of wisdom as in the case ofShaykh Suhrawardi in theMutarahat ,Talwihat , andHikmat al-ishraq who has clearly rejected thisview, and Imam [Fakhr al-Din] al-Razi and those who enjoy their ranks.”[63]

What prevents the soul as a simple intellect from perceiving intelligible essences on a continuous basis or “all at once” (daf’ah wahidah ) is the intervention of sensible andimaginal faculties. The faculty of imagination (khayal ) acts as an intermediary between the sensible and the intelligible domains and cannot sustain incorporeal forms or meanings at the same level as the intellect. But since the intellect belongs essentially to the world of theintelligibilia , it is capable of making multiple meanings present (istihdar ) to itself all at once. As the saying goes, saysSadra , “it is in the nature of the intellect to make many one (tawhid al-kathir ) and of the senses [to make] one many (takthir al-wahid ).”[64] At this juncture,Sadra establishes an isomorphic unity between the intellect and the intelligible world, and it is this intrinsic isomorphism between the two that enables the intellect to know all things.[65] In many ways, this is what Aristotle had in mind when he said that “only the like can know the like”.[66] The soul or the simple intellect remains a single and unitary substance (jawhar basit ) in knowing various things, and multiplicity in intellection is attributed to the differences of such ‘epistemic tools’ as sensation and imagination. Unobstructed by the contingencies of sensation, knowledge now becomes ‘presence’ (hudur ) and ‘unveiling’ (kashf ):

“The soul that knows a multitude of things through intellectual realization and disembodiment from the garment of being human does not become destitute of their knowledge but rather more [intense] as unveiling and clearing (wuduh ). In spite of this, when the soul goes above the differences of time and space, its knowledge of things becomes present in it completely all at once as in the case of the knowledge of separate substances whose knowledge [of things] is completely present in them in actuality without the obscurity of potentiality.”[67]

The simplicity of the soul leadsSadra to an important tenet of his epistemology, i.e., the particular nature of knowledge as it is acquired in the soul. Disengagement or disembodiment as a standing condition of intelligibility renders knowledge an existential state of consciousness. Knowledge is, thus, a particular and simple ‘identity’ or state (huwiyyah shakhsiyyah basitah ) despite the fact that the human mind tends to consider all knowledge under the rubric of universals (kulliyyat ) that act as intermediaries between the order of being and the order of thought – a dichotomy thatSadra seeks to overcome through his realist ontology of intelligible forms.

In light of these considerations, it is not difficult to see whySadra insists that our 'ordinary' or natural encounter with the world is not mediated through second-order concepts but given in first-order experiences. In perceiving the tree in front of me, my knowledge-experience is a direct act of 'seeing', which involves an intuition of some kind and which is not predicated upon such universals as the species, genus, or differentia. It then follows that our most intimate and primary standing towards the world remains particular and specific, and the larger context within which this experience is made possible is provided by the all-inclusive reality of being. It is only at the level of second-order conceptualization that we speak of intelligible forms as abstractions, concepts, and notions. This is also what is meant by the ‘presence’ (hudur ) of something to itself and to other things: presence implies something concrete and particular.

In stressing the immediacy and self-evidentiality of perception,Sadra adoptsSuhrawardi’s terminology and uses the words “vision (ibsar ) and “witnessing” (mushahadah ) to describe the particularity of knowledge-experience.[68] In his discussion of perception as a case of knowledge-by-presence (al-‘ilm al-huduri ),Suhrawardi states that “perception takes place only when the soul has a [concrete] vision [of something] and vision is not through a universal but particular form. It then follows that the soul has an illuminative andpresential knowledge [not mediated] through a [representational] form.”[69] The world as representation is an abstract, mediated and second-order world whereas our most primordial experience of it, as in the case of seeing and hearing, is never captured fully in representations of any kind. HenceSadra’s relentless attacks on the representational theory of knowledge (al-‘ilm al-irtisami ) and knowledge-by-acquisition (al-‘ilm al-husuli ), and his staunch defense of knowledge-by-presence (al-‘ilm al-huduri ).

FollowingSuhrawardi’s insight, Sadr a attempts to establish intellection in terms that we would normally attribute to sense-experience. Sadr a’s main concern seems to construe intellection as a unique, simple and particular encounter with the world in a manner as immediate as sense-perception without the limitations of corporeal existence attached to it. Thus he says that

“knowledge , as we have explained before, is the non-material being, and being in itself is not a universal nature belonging to a particular genus or species even if it is divided into species through the differentia or into individuals through individual properties or into classes through accidental conditions. Every knowledge is a particular and simple identity not to be grouped under a universal meaning [i.e., concept] belonging to an essence.”[70]

Sadra further states that intellection takes place not through the “incarnation of an intelligible form in the soul but through archetypes (muthul ) that reside in the mind and the soul’s unification with them.” Since the intelligible forms of things are ontologically real substances inhabiting the world of theintelligibilia , the soul as the simple intellect can know things and their perceptual properties only by uniting with their intelligible essences. With this,Sadra asserts, one more time, the unification of the intellect and the intelligible.

Sadra’s construction of intelligible substances as ontological actualities has a number of implications for his concept of knowledge and the ‘constructivist’ theory of intelligibility. The realist ontology of the intelligible world prevents intelligible forms, ideas, concepts, and meanings from becoming mere psychological and mental states residing in the mind. Intelligible forms are not mere instruments through which we know the extra-mental world. Rather, they are the very basis upon which the world is what it is. In fact, we may even go so far as to say that without the intelligible forms, there would be no such thing as the ‘world’. Put differently, objects as we know them do not precede intelligibility. What we conventionally call ‘reality’ is not an aggregate of objects devoid of intelligibility to which clusters of meaning and signification are attributeda posteriori . The world is given to us already imbued with meaning, and that is why we are as much dependent on the world for meaning as it is dependent on our ‘subjectivity’ for epistemic order and structure.[71]

In theAsfar , when discussing the primacy of self-knowledge over against knowledge-by-representation, Sadr a makes an interesting contrast between physical instruments and light to show the place of intelligibility in our experience of the world. Intelligible forms are not like manual instruments with which we operate but which are dispensable in themselves. Rather, they are like the light that makes vision possible:

“One cannot say that these forms are instruments for the soul’sintellecting things other than itself. Rather they are intelligible for the soul by themselves in the sense that whatever corresponds to them outside the soul [i.e., in the extra-mental world] becomes intelligible for the soul through them. Because we say that if these forms were not intelligible for the soul in the first place, they would not be perceived by it. The mediation of these forms in perceiving things is not like the mediation of manual instruments (alah sina‘iyyah ) in carrying out bodily works (al-a‘mal al-badaniyyah ) but rather like the sensate light in perceiving visible things whereby the light is seen first and then everything else is seen through it.”[72]

Sadra’s attempt to define knowledge in terms of being and its modalities leads him to a ‘non-subjectivist’ concept of knowledge. In contrast to modern epistemology that anchors meaning and knowledge in the knowing subject and its paraphernalia,Sadra places intellection within the larger context of being,which encompasses the mind. Sadra thus considers the ‘non-self’ essential for the knowledge of the self. ‘Going out of’ the self and uniting with the intelligible world is now posited as a standing condition of knowledge. This rendersSadra’s theory of knowledge a thoroughly non-subjectivist enterprise. By defining intelligibility as belonging to the world of theintelligibilia ,Sadra dethrones the knowing subject as the sole or even the proper depository of meaning, placing the concept of agency in a larger context of ontological meanings and relations.

Notes