Theory of Knowledge in Inslamic Philosophy
Abolghasem Fanaei
Department of Philosophy
University of Sheffield
Autumn Semester
1997
Table of contents:
Introduction
Islamic philosophy has been developed out of extreme motivation for discovering the truths of the "external world". It has been taken for granted that there is external world and that human minds have a cognitive power which enable them to discover this world. In their opinion knowledge was possible and scepticism was completely wrong. Philosophy has been defined as "an activity that makes human minds an intellectual world corresponding to the external world". Most of Islamic philosophers have been believing in the power of reason in philosophising and discovering metaphysical truths concerning the "essence" and "existence" of things. For this reason, the main parts of philosophical texts in this tradition have been devoted to metaphysical questions concerning the external world, although this world obtain the human soul and mind. Of course they sometimes have been debating of "mind", "knowledge", and etc., however they mainly looked at these subjects from the ontological point of view, instead of epistemological one. They have been trying to work out a theory about the essence and the existence of mind and knowledge and their causes.
The main concern of Islamic philosophers ,briefly speaking, has been ontological, not epistemological. But recently, after introducing with western philosophy, some parts of philosophy, such as epistemology, ethics, and philosophy of science, which has been overlooked before this time, became more important and occupied independent chapters of some philosophical texts
Although the questions that have dealt with and motivations for philosophising are diverse between Islamic philosophy and Western philosophy, these two traditions have some in comm. I shall try to show what differences and what resemblance are between them concerning some epistemological questions. In this essay I will try to represent some answers that offered to some epistemic questions by Islamic philosophers, and these answers all together can be regarded as an outline of a theory of knowledge
Islamic philosophers, have been defining knowledge as "concept or proposition which conforms to fact".(afterwards I P D). This definition have some implications and assumptions; Firstly, this definition presupposes special concept of truth, I e, correspondence theory of truth according to which truth is that concept that conforms to fact.
Secondly, this definition, comparing with one that common in western philosophy, has three important differences. the common definition of knowledge in western philosophy is "justified true belief", (afterwards W P D). The first difference is the presence of "justification" in W P D which absent from I S D, the second difference is "believing" which has taken as a part of definition in W P D, while has been neglected in I P D. And finally, in I P D knowledge is so extended that contains concept, while W P D only contains the propositional knowledge, because it is this especial kind of knowledge that can be believed.
Now, It can be claimed that these two definitions stem from two different standpoins; In fact, their differences are due to differences of questions they are trying to answer. I P D defines knowledge such as, i.e., regardless of its relation with subject, while W P D concerns with knowledge as a characteristic of subject of it. This definition is an answer to the question "what it is for someone to be said he has knowledge", and takes this relation in account. Therefore, the correct answer to this question, has to contains believing and justifying. Because if subject does not believe, or has not justification, we would not truly claim that he knows something. On the other hand an answer to the question of what is knowledge as such, does not need to refers to believing and justifying.
Is there any advantage that can be claimed for these two definitions to each other? One can claim that former definition has this advantage. For this definition accounts knowledge in itself, not in its relation with subject. Western philosophers come to their definition by analysing the uses of the word as a verb and its applications in this way. While Islamic philosophers paid attention to the essence of knowledge as an adjective or property, and the qualities of its existence. Peter Carruthers showed very well why we do not need to take the justification as a part of our definition of knowledge. His arguments against justificationalism are considerable:
Before anything It is worth to distinguish the innate idea from the innate knowledge on
the one hand and a priori concept from a priori knowledge on the other hand. Islamic
philosophers have rejected the existence of innate concept or knowledge all together; and
in this connection they agree whit empiricists and disagree with platonism in western
philosophy, although they come to this conclusion by different grand and different way.
But in connection with a priori, they have been denied a priori concept and acknowledged
that there are some propositions a priori which have to be known a priori. Therefore they
agree with rationalists in this aspect.
Although in Islamic philosophical texts which have written for instruction we find the
Islamic philosophers insist upon that we acquire universal concepts by abstraction from
particular concepts, in the stage of explanation they believe that mind creates universals
after acquiring particulars by experience.
A famous interpretation of foundationalism in epistemology takes it as saying that the basic beliefs, on which we built the rest of our knowledge, is the empirical beliefs, come from sensory experience. But we must regard it just as one version of foundationalism, and it is better to call it "Empirical Foundationalism". This version of foundationalism is subject to fatal objections so that seems unacceptable, mainly because we have crucial evidence against the validity of experience, and perceptual knowledge, which makes it very hard to believe that they are true by itself, let alone one can take this part of knowledge as foundation of the rest of his knowledge.
But, I think, there is another version of foundationalism according to which, the basic
beliefs are not what come from experience, but that come from reason alone, e.g., the laws
of logic or the rules of thought, or the truth of reason, in virtue of them we can correct
our perceptual knowledge. These beliefs are self-evidence, necessary and immune from
falsehood, so we can rely upon them and justify the rest of our beliefs by appeal to them
without facing those difficulties that empirical Foundationalism faced with. We can call
this version of foundationalism "Rationale Foundationalism". So,
foundationalism varies according to "Empiricism" and "Rationalism".
When we are to inquire about concepts or ideas, we would recognise two respects of them. These respects which I prefer to call them "ontological respect" and "epistemological respect", should be distinguish from each other exactly, before any debate concerning concepts. Because as we shall see, some problems in western philosophy arise from disregarding these two respects seriously.
By "ontological respect", I mean that respect which concerns with the existence of concepts and the way they exist. When we are in this position, we deal with such questions as "whether the concepts exist at all?"- According to nominalism, for example, the universal concepts have no existence at all- And "if they exist at all, where they are?, in mind or out of mind in the nature or in transcendental world as?"
By "epistemological respect", I mean that relation which must be exists between every concept ant its own extension. We can regard a concept in two ways: sometimes we regard an idea as such by overlooking its relation with its extension. But in most of our thinking we regard concepts not as such, but as concept of something else. And this is in latter case that a concept shows its extension and refer to something else. So a concept must has two completely deferent kinds of properties. From the former point of view, we can ask Whether a concept or particular kinds of concept exist. But from the latter point of view we can ask "whether this or that concept is true and shows fact. So the origin of ontological questions about concepts is very deferent from the origin of epistemological questions, Although the answers of them may be relate to each other
Therefore, if we distinguish these two aspects clearly, we are able to claim or adopt, without any self-contradiction, that it is possible for a concept to be exist only in the present, but shows something which has existed in the past or will exist in the future. The existence of a concept can be contingent, and nevertheless its content can be necessary. The existence of a concept can be depend on mind, and what it shows can be independent and absolute. The existence of a concept can be temporal, but its truth can be eternal. The existence of concepts is conditioned to the existence of human kind, But at the same time, the truths they indicate and inform can be even in where and when that there is no human. We can accept all of these conclusions easily, if and only if, we separate two respects noted above.
We can classify "empiricism" and "rationalism" under the "metaphysical" views and regard their disputes about the existence of some kind of thing such as universal concepts in the world or classify them as "epistemological" views that disagree about the nature, source and domain of human knowledge.
It is worth to note that although a concept exists in the mind, its extension can exists in or out of mind, according to its content and what the concept actually indicate and denote. Take as an instance the concept of "apple" and the concept of "proposition"; the extension of apple exists in the external world, but the extension of proposition only can exist in the mind.
Islamic philosophers have claimed that everything has two Important aspect: essence and
existence, on the one hand. One the other hand everything has two kinds of existence:
external and internal, in and out of mind. These two existences are different, so their
effects are different. Take a fire as an example; fair in its external existence, While
the same fire when realise in mind has not this effect. Beside of this deference, the
essence of objects remain when they come to mind and become known. Accordingly, this
explanation constitutes the foundation of possibility of knowledge. In claiming the
possibility of knowledge, we need something which remain the same inside and outside of
mind, and this is the essence of objects that has this characteristic and satisfy this
requirement.
These beliefs constituting the foundation for the rest.
As we noticed above, Islamic philosophers account knowledge as an mental essence which corresponds to the external essence of the same object. Therefore, "Knowledge by concept" consists of that knowledge which belong to the "essence" of objects, and since the essence is the same in both its external and internal existence, then, the propositional knowledge becomes possible. From this theory of the essence of knowledge, we can infer The Theory of truth in Islamic philosophy; This theory is the correspondence theory of truth, according to which truth consists of conforming of concepts with their extensions.