Suhrawardī (d.1191) and his interpretation of Avicenna's (d.1037) philosophical anthropology
| Abstract | Suhrawardi's interpretation of Avicenna's philosophical anthropology greatly depends on the Peripatetic system, in spite of its novel light motif and the faculty of imagination's predominance. His definition of the soul does not depart significantly from Avicenna's: its definition as an entelechy and a substance, its incorporeality, its pre-existence, or the role of the vital spirits---pneumata. However, he criticizes the materialism implied in a number of Avicennan theses. At issue is the ontological unity of the soul that Suhrawardi perceives to be jeopardized by the localization in the body of the representative faculties---the active and passive imaginations and the estimation---and their objects. After criticizing the "extramissive" and the "intromissive" theories of vision, Suhrawardi introduces his own illuminative theory in an effort to simultaneously account for mystical vision. He also reduces Avicenna's faculties responsible for representation to a single faculty, focusing on the soul's role in perception. Suhrawardi analyses self-knowledge, discussing the primary awareness of one's own existence, self-identity, the unmediated character of this type of knowledge, and the issue of individuation. At the conceptual level, intellection is logically prior to imagination, while discussions about the active intelligence, its functions, and the conjunction of the rational soul---the Isfahbad-light---with the active intelligence---the light principle---still remain Avicennan. Epistemological concepts such as intuition and mystical contemplation become central in the debate over the primacy of mystical knowledge over philosophical knowledge. Suhrawardi's and Avicenna's discussions about the nature of prophetic knowledge are then contrasted with the nature of mystical knowledge by introducing the negative and positive functions of the faculty of imagination, namely, its role in the particularization of universal truths and its mimetic function. The survival of th | |||||||||
| Keywords | No keywords specified (fix it) | |||||||||
| Categories | ||||||||||
| Options |
|
|||||||||
Download options| PhilPapers Archive |
Upload a copy of this paper Check publisher's policy on self-archival Papers currently archived: 5,672 |
| External links |
  Try with proxy. |
| Through your library | Only published papers are available at libraries |
Similar books and articlesYaḥyá ibn Ḥabash Suhrawardī (2000). The Philosophy of Illumination =. Brigham Young University Press.
Sajjad H. Rizvi (1999). An Islamic Subversion of the Existence-Essence Distinction? Suhrawardi's Visionary Hierarchy of Lights. Asian Philosophy 9 (3):219 – 227.
Mehdi Aminrazavi (2003). How Ibn Sīnian is Suhrawardī's Theory of Knowledge? Philosophy East and West 53 (2):203-214.
Mehdi Amin Razavi (2003). How Ibn Sinian is Suhrawardi's Theory of Knowledge? Philosophy East and West 53 (2):203-214.
Farshad Norouzi, Illuminationist School and Critique of Avicenna’s Karársīs Fi ‘L-Hikmah. New Philosophy.
Yaḥyá ibn Ḥabash Suhrawardī (1998/2006). Suhrawardi: The Shape of Light: Hayakal Al-Nur. Fons Vitae.
Peter Adamson (2005). On Knowledge of Particulars. Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 105 (3):273–294.
Tony Street (2000). Avicenna and Tusi on the Contradiction and Conversion of the Absolute. History and Philosophy of Logic 21 (1):45-56.
Raja Bahlul (2009). Avicenna and the Problem of Universals. Philosophy and Theology 21 (1/2):3-25.
Yaḥyá ibn Ḥabash Suhrawardī (1999). The Philosophical Allegories and Mystical Treatises. Mazda Publishers.
Gad Freudenthal & Mauro Zonta (2012). Avicenna Among Medieval Jews the Reception of Avicenna's Philosophical, Scientific and Medical Writings in Jewish Cultures, East and West. Arabic Sciences and Philosophy 22 (2):217-287.
R. E. Houser (2011). Aristotle and Two Medieval Aristotelians on the Nature of God. International Philosophical Quarterly 51 (203):355 - 375.
Henrik Lagerlund (2009). Avicenna and Ūsī on Modal Logic. History and Philosophy of Logic 30 (3):227-239.
Jon McGinnis (2006). Making Abstraction Less Abstract. Proceedings of the American Catholic Philosophical Association 80:169-183.
Analytics
Monthly downloads |
Added to index2011-01-07Total downloads9 ( #114,014 of 549,049 )Recent downloads (6 months)1 ( #63,185 of 549,049 )How can I increase my downloads? |
My notes
Discussion
